As we advance further into the digital age, technology has become prevalent, and we have become more reliant on it to manage our daily routines. Technology like the Internet has made many things we do in life more convenient, but it has also created a huge problem.
We now need to have individual online accounts for things like email, social media, shopping, entertainment, and much more. Think about how many online accounts you have right now and then ask yourself these questions.
- Have you ever thought about keeping track of how many different passwords you have created for these accounts?
- Have you created a password for a new account, and have it get rejected for not meeting the complexity requirement?
- Have you tried to log into an account you haven’t used in a while and then forgetting the password?
These types of problems have caused us to experience a sense of overwhelmingness called password fatigue. I am sure there might be some people who possesses an extraordinary memorization ability, but most of us are unlikely to have it. To overcome password fatigue, we will naturally adopt bad password practices and habits which will jeopardize our accounts’ security.
Here are some bad password practices and habits:
- Reusing the same password for multiple accounts.
- Using easy to remember common words, names, and numbers like family member names and birthdays.
- Writing down your account names and passwords physically on a piece of paper.
Here are some reasons why these practices and habits are bad:
- The practice of reusing the same password for multiple accounts is a bad idea because if one of your account is compromised, all your other accounts that uses the same password are compromised as well.
- Using easy to remember words and numbers for your passwords makes it easier for hackers to use social engineering, information reconnaissance, and password cracking software to crack it.
- Writing down your account names and passwords on a piece of paper would make the password more vulnerable because it opens it up to be physically stolen by someone else.
Fortunately, there is an ultimate solution to fix these habits and enhance security. The ultimate solution is to use a password manager. There are many kinds, and a popular one is the LastPass password manager. It is web browser extension on your computer or an app on your smartphone, and it stores all of your account names and passwords.
Here is list of benefits of using a password manager:
- When you use a password manager, you will only ever need to remember one strong, master password to log in, so you do not have to worry about remembering multiple passwords.
- After you’ve logged in to the password manager, you can add and save all of your accounts, and use it to generate a strong, random password for each account, so you won’t have to create your own passwords for each account.
- All the data stored in the password manager is encrypted when not in use and can only be decrypted with your device key and master password, so it has more security.
- When you try to log in to an account from your device, the password manager can autofill your credentials for added convenience.
