Dear Lifehacker, I know it has been repeatedly recommended that one should never use common words as passwords -- but is it OK to use foreign words? Perhaps not commonly spoken languages such as French or German, but not from languages such as perhaps Finnish or anglicised Chinese or Japanese? Thanks, Multilinguist

Dear Lifehacker, My company and some websites force me to regularly change my passwords, like every three months or so. How often do I need to change my passwords for all my other logins (if at all)?

You should read Mat Honan's heartbreaking tale of a hack attack and the ensuing discussion on Techmeme. Much of the story is about Amazon or Apple's security practices, but I would still advise everyone to turn on Google's two-factor authentication to make your Gmail account safer and less likely to get hacked.

We all should know that decent passwords are all that stand between us and a potential security incident. Yet many people end up infected with a virus or with a massive credit card bill because they failed to follow the basics of password security. Here are the 10 things that people keep getting wrong, and ways to make sure you get them right.