How many passwords do you have, or even better to ask, how many different passwords do you have? Do you use the same combination of your pet’s names and your birth year over and over?
Password protection is a big deal these days. It used to be that the faulty thought “no one would target little ole me” was somewhat true. I recently read the life story of Kevin Mitnick, a “hacker” that now runs a successful security company. He used social engineering a lot, and while he was very clever, there were many examples of how we can be our own worst enemy when it comes to online security. When you begin to understand why hackers want to access your website, emails and other frequently used sites, you can better understand the need be cyber safe.
Here are 7 bad password habits you need to break now
As an administrator and owner of multiple websites, there are a few things I see happening all too often when I am dealing with others and I thought I’d take a minute to share some of my favorite practices.
Password Management
I use Lastpass for my personal and 1Password at work, just cause I like to try new things and I keep the two separate. They both work great, you only need to remember on very strong password, they will auto fill the username and password on every site you visit and generate new, unique and safe passwords for you.
- 1Password
- Intro Video on Vimeo
- Downloads for Mac, PC, iOS, Android and all of their Browser Extensions
- Features
- LastPass
Website Logins
If you are managing your own website, you probably have given others access at some time for one reason or another, I know, because I have the logins for an inordinate amount of sites, but, hey, I’m trustworthy, right? Until someone has access to my computer or info.
Do not ever give anyone your user name and password!
Set up a new user with the proper (needed) rights and give them their own login. When their work is done, delete the user, or change the password if you think they made need access later. You can use the vault features in LastPass to share passwords as well.
Social Media Logins
Same thing as with passwords, make someone a manager of your Facebook page, rather than handing over your information. Have you ever wondered about logging into sites using your Google or Facebook login? There are some pros and cons, here is a video that explains it well.
Email Accounts
GMail has a cool feature called “delegate” in email. You can give an assistant access to be able to respond to emails on your behalf, yet still be able to restrict their access if needed. You can use Google’s 2 Step Verification to make sure that even with your password, access is blocked. If you frequently use other computers to check your gmail, make sure you completely log out.
Two Factor Authentication
While Google 2 Step will cover most needs, to be extra secure, enable two factor authentication on other sites you use.
Be a Safe Clicker!
I have seen many very smart people fall for email scams and phishing attempts. If someone you don’t know, but may be in your social circle or email contacts sends you a link to “open this doc” or view this “Dropbox folder”, take a moment to think about it. Don’t ever click on a link to a third party (bank, credit card, Amazon, Paypal, etc) from an email or link on a site, go to the site and log in. Those darn crooks are getting pretty good at mimicking sites and once you enter your user name and password, they will make your life hell!
Take a few moments to review and organize your digital wallet. Leave a comment below if you have comments or suggestions.
Thanks Chris, I’d even add my “bp” password 🙂
Hi Barbara, good to hear from you, as long as you are dusting off the bp password, maybe it’s time for another guest post? 😉
Thanks for posting on this topic. I have also found with regards to your wordpress login to make sure that your username is not ‘admin.’ All of these spammers assume that most people use this for their username. So make sure you change it up and do something different.
Great post on password management! Using strong, unique passwords for each account is essential, and tools like password managers make it much easier to stay secure. Two-factor authentication is a must too! Simple yet effective steps to protect our online presence. Thanks for the helpful tips!