Today is all about embracing out with the old and in with the new—passwords that is.
Tech blog Gizmodo has dedicated February 1 to securing your data and keeping it safe. How, you ask? By all of us changing our passwords—together. That means those of you who won’t let the classics like password, 123456 or qwerty die, now’s your chance to get more secure! For the rest of you, an update won’t hurt you either.
No one likes changing passwords. It means having to remember all new ones! With the amount of websites with logins these days, the average person can easily have dozens of passwords to keep track of. It’s no wonder many use the same password everywhere and use commonly used words.
If you use the same password everywhere and don’t change it regularly, you’re leaving yourself wide open. Once a website gets hacked and your password is stolen, cybercriminals pretty much have access all of your accounts.
Also, the easier your password is to remember, the easier it is to hack. If it’son a worst passwords list, then you really are just asking for trouble. It’s not hard to create a strong password either. No excuses!
If you’re worried about forgetting all of these new passwords, use something like LastPass. I use it and it’s great. It installs to all of your browsers (though you should use Chrome) and stores all of your passwords securely. All you do is log in (with an uber secure password) and every time you hit a site that needs a password, LastPass fills it in for you. It’s a lot easier to remember one password than dozens. Problem solved.
Online security breaches are happening all of the time now. Online shopping, student records, banks—nothing seems off limits. Changing your passwords often and using different ones for each of your accounts is the easiest way to avoid being a victim.
Now off you go, you have new passwords to make!