Microsoft has launched a site to help you determine if the passwords you are using to access your personal financial sites (or any sensitive site) are secure. Overall the suggestions they offer for creating strong passwords are good. Though the password checker is basic, it should help those with basic passwords create better ones. If you don’t already know if your password is ‘basic,’ then you should definitely check this site out.

A word of caution:

The Microsoft site is not encrypted and uses javascript to determine if the password entered is bad, good or great. Typing your sensitive passwords into any site other than the site you created them for isn’t really a good idea. So if you do type in a password, at least type a password similar to your real one. For more information about secure passwords check out our resources section.