My poor dad gets so confused with all of the passwords my brother and I have set for him. I think it's time to set him up with a password manager. It's actually long overdue and will help if I'm not around or too busy to drop what I'm doing and fixed whatever got messed up again. :-)
I'm going to give Dashlane (https://www.dashlane.com/) a try and see if that does the trick!
I know passwords are a pain, but they are, unfortunately, highly necessary, especially on the Internet. My dad is a classic example of what I see every day when someone says they've been hacked. Simple passwords like "mousemickey" just don't cut it. And yes, he clicks on links from people he "thinks" he knows because it's a spoofed account all the time. Easy to remember passwords are just as easy to hack, especially if you "let them in" by clicking that link your "friend" sent you. I'll do another blog about recognizing those spoof e-mails.
Picking a password can be hard. Using a password generator is nice, but it's usually too complicated or not easy to remember. Phrases are a good way to go and can be personalized so they are easy for YOU to remember.
Examples:
I Love Puppies - 1LovePupp!e5
Babies are cute - B@b1esRcut5
It looks weird, but they are easy to remember and actually pretty easy to type, too!
"Yeah, but you work in IT, you HAVE to change your password or use complex ones!" True, but, so should "everyone else." It's the "average" user that typically gets hacked or experiences some form of identity theft that we, the geeks, end up trying to fix! :-) Don't wait for something bad to happen to decide it's time to make a new password that's more secure!
Being the geek I am, you'd think I'd have a password manager myself, but I don't. I keep all my passwords in my head and it takes about a day for me to "get used" to a new password. I keep the number of online shopping accounts to a minimum and use separate e-mail accounts for shopping, social networking, and "real" e-mail.There's also another that's my "junk mail" account. I do keep a spreadsheet of which sites uses a particular UserID, but I think it's time to give Dashlane a go for my own stuff and see how that goes. This isn't a plug for them, I did a quick Google search, it got good reviews, and it's free. :-) I'll do my own review of it when I get a chance, but I'm not going to be one of those bloggers that downloads ten different products to see which one is best. I just don't have the time and it takes time to properly review and compare those kind of products.
At any rate, DO change your password at least once a month. DON'T use the same usernames and password for ALL of your accounts and sites where you have to log in or register. If you hate typing passwords or changing them, find a password manager program that suits you and take advantage of it! :-) Most are very easy to use and you only have to enter your information once. Some will even generate usernames and passwords for you, then log in automatically!
I used Dashlane since the time of this post. The only annoyance I had was having to log into it every time the system booted up.
ReplyDeleteI have since switched to Kaspersky's Password Manager, which is part of their Pure 3.0 suite. I had bought the three pack to cover my parents computers as well as my own, but I did not install Kaspersky on my own machine until recently.
I've set up Kaspersky Password Manager on my mom's computer, and so far, so good. So, next will be my dad, who is far worse at remembering passwords, especially five minutes after changing one. :-)