Climb every mountain, ford every stream, CHANGE EVERY PASSWORD, till you find your dream.

Recently over 10,000 usernames and passwords were publicly disclosed from users of hotmail.com, msn.com, and live.com email services.  Microsoft has released a public statement saying their investigation determined the IDs were stolen through a phishing attack.

Many people use the same weak password for every website they visit.  It’s convenient and makes it easy to remember.  However, in the above case these people will not only have compromised the services they receive from Microsoft but also many of their other services.

With social networking and other internet accounts now even more popular there is plenty of scope for hackers and by using the same password to access Facebook, Amazon and your online bank account, you're making it much easier for them. Once one password has been compromised, it's only a matter of time before the fraudsters will be able to gain access to your other accounts and steal information for financial gain.

As far as password choice is concerned, it is important to choose a ‘strong’ password. A strong password is typically a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.

Don't use a word from the dictionary. Dictionary words are easier to remember, but hackers use electronic dictionaries that simply try out every word until they get the right one.

Don’t use common passwords like 'admin', '1234', manager, or ‘password’ as some viruses use a list of several hundred common passwords to try and gain access to other computers on the network, meaning that if one employee is infected, the whole corporate network could quickly be compromised.

If you find it difficult to remember passwords then choose a phrase that is easy to remember and then use the first letter of each word as your password, with a few special characters added in.

Using personal information as a password should be avoided because that information can often be found on social network profiles and aggregated from other online sources. Stay away from the names of pets or children, birthdays, phone numbers, addresses, or the like. They're too easy to guess.

And don't leave passwords on notes next to your computer,  it may sound obvious but it's a common issue.

Finally, make sure that your password recovery information is up-to-date. After choosing a complex password, you may forget it, and you don't want the password reset e-mail going to an abandoned e-mail account or to someone who might exploit the opportunity to hijack your account.

If you use Microsoft's online services then change your passwords immediately. Also log into those Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and Yahoo! accounts and do likewise as a simple best practice to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of habit. And use a different password for each site - it's difficult but it's better to be safe than sorry.