remembering passwords
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Did you know that 90 percent of passwords can be cracked in six hours? On top of that, almost two-thirds of internet users use the same password for many different accounts (is this you?). It’s scary, when you think about it. What if someone was able to crack one password and then discovered they had the password for your bank account as well?

The internet security company SplashData released its annual list of of the 25 worst passwords  earlier this year, a list it generated based on files containing over 3.3 million passwords that were leaked in 2014. You might be shocked to learn that “123456” and “password” hold the top two spots, just as they have each year since the company started doing this study in 2011. Yikes!

And yet there’s a reason so many of us have ignored the advice to have all unique passwords: it’s impossible to remember them all!

Comedian Don Friesen perfectly articulated the frustrations we’re all feeling in his short comedy routine below.
Well, just watch this funny video that illustrates the point. (I had to laugh so hard!)

So… how are you supposed to keep track of so many different unique passwords?

Use LastPass to Store All Your Passwords.

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LastPass (https://lastpass.com/) is a password manager, auto form filler, password generator, and secure digital wallet that will have a huge impact not only on your security, but also your sanity! It’s the system I use.

Keep all your passwords under lock and key

LastPass provides a password vault where you can see all of your accounts and passwords organized by category. You can then add new passwords, edit, delete and organize. All you have to remember is the master password to log into the vault and LastPass does the rest of the work.

Generate longer, stronger passwords

I don’t know about you, but one of my biggest challenges has always been trying to think of a completely unique password. With LastPass, though, I don’t have to think about that. Every time I’m updating an account or creating a new one, the password generator appears and generates a password for me at the click of a button.

There are a lot of different password managers out there, but I do highly recommend LastPass. It’s even free on your desktop and you only pay when you upgrade to synch it across multiple devices (such as your cell phone). Even then it’s a very low annual fee.

I also wrote a post on the WordPress 4.3 release, including its feature of generating a “strong password” for users.

Here is a list of some Password Managers:

And here are a couple of tools that help you quickly generate a password that meets “strong password” requirements:

Final Thoughts on Remembering Passwords

At the end of the day, whether you choose to use LastPass or another company, the most important thing is that you ARE using a password manager to protect your personal information online. Too many people are tempting fate by using the same one or two passwords for the majority (or all of their accounts) and opening themselves up to serious risk. I don’t want that to be you.

How are you keeping track of your passwords?

 

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