F-Secure suggests two-part passwords

F-Secure is advising people to write down their passwords and keep them in their wallet or purse.

But before you have a heart attack, the security software company has a trick up its sleeve that it believes could actually make this safe to do while at the same time creating complex passwords that are harder to suss out.

It said when thinking up new account passwords, create them in two parts. Having one part of the equation in your head means the other can be written down in a way that will jog your memory so you don’t forget it.

It said this should lessen the chances of users' accounts being hacked. The advice is aimed specifically at sites such as Facebook whose basic security measures are struggling to keep up with the ploys of hackers and cyber criminals.

It will also help people create different passwords for different accounts so if one is compromised the others are still safe.

By creating two-part passwords people can keep one part on them at all times, ideally a random four-digit number, for example 3499. You can write this down and keep it on your person.

F-Secure said it does not matter if it is lost or stolen because without the second part it is useless. Then all you have to do is change the numbers and again write them down so you can remember them.

The second part of the password should contain three characters you can easily remember in your head – for example your initials or something that represents the site you need the password for, using both upper and lower-case letters.

For a Facebook account you could use FAc or Ebay could be Eba. You can choose to insert these characters in the front, middle or end of the numerical password you have written down or in any combination you can remember. Just don’t write it down.

F-Secure said this method will not only lessen the likelihood of people's accounts being hacked into but it also means people can create different passwords for different accounts so that if one account is compromised, the others are still safe.