Password Managers



You’ve been there…we all have.  You are surfing the web when you come upon an amazing site that you just have to be part of.  You decide to sign up!  The site asks you to create a username and password.  Hmmm, how often will you visit this site?  You know you won’t remember some arbitrary password so you quickly type in your usual information, keeping it easy to remember for the next time you visit the site.  The average person uses greater than twenty log ins on different websites and tend to use and reuse weak passwords website to website.  Who can remember all the passwords for all of your accounts anyway? Right? But what you just did, by reusing a weak password, is make it easier for a hacker to access your information and the ability for them to enter a website as you. In 2016, Yahoo was a victim of a cyber attack which allowed hackers to access valuable information from one billion accounts.  So now, if your Yahoo account was hacked, and you reuse the same weak passwords, your other accounts became vulnerable. There are a few ways hackers access this information.  They use programs that guess passwords, they hack into the website itself, or by sending out phishing e-mails, that look legitimate but actually aren’t.

According to Keepass.com, password reuse can be a serious problem.  If a password leak occurs, potential hackers now have an e-mail, username and password combination to use on other sites, potentially leaving your protected information unprotected. They can also use password resets and gain access to your banking and other vital sites, not to mention sending along e-mail that looks like it is from you, to all your contacts in your e-mail account(s).

How can you prevent this?  By using different and strong passwords for each of the sites that you use.  Strong passwords are long, unpredictable and contain letters (upper and lowercase), numbers and symbols.  But how can you remember all these random, unpredictable passwords?  That is where password managers come in.

A Password Manager app helps to generate strong passwords in an encrypted safe vault….you don’t even need to know your passwords.  All you have to remember is one master password.

So now you think, that’s great, but I access websites from my phone, tablet, computer and when I’m without one of my devices visiting family and friends. No problem, most Password Managers sync your passwords across all of your devices. So no matter what device you are using, your information stays safe.

So, by just having to remember one strong password and letting the manager take care of the rest, you are improving your online security and your peace of mind.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How SMBs Can Utilize the Cloud To Build Their Business

Breaking News: Downtime Kills Small Businesses

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly of Mobility and BYOD