What's your password?
/Do you use easy to remember passwords because, let's face it, there are so many to remember! How are you supposed to remember them all? Or do you freely give it out to others or even just have it stuck to your monitor on a post-it note?
Kid's names, birthdates, anniversaries, pet's names etc. Each site you sign up to, you may as well use the same password, or at last variations of that password, because maybe you do worry about security after all.
Does any of this sound familiar?
We've all done this at times. Yes, even us here at Infinite Edge. Many are still doing this now. We’re not here to judge you. Most of you may just not understand what you're risking. This is not about shaming you, or making you feel guilty, or scaremongering. Changing just one thing can make a massive difference to your online security.
LastPass, a popular password manager on the market does research each year into the behaviours around passwords and last month they released the data from 2019. 69% of Australians mostly or always use the same password (or a slight variation) despite 80% of the same research pool also believing they are well versed in password best practices.
Why do we do this? We know what’s the right thing to do, yet we do the opposite… Well you aren’t alone. 41% of the global respondents in LastPass’ research believed that their accounts weren’t valuable enough to be worth a hacker’s time. Don’t be fooled! Any personal data is valuable to the right person.
What is our recommendation?
Get yourself a password manager. It doesn’t have to be LastPass (though we do use and recommend them!) as there are many out there in the market. This will let you create random unique and strong passwords for every account that you can store with them. And the good news is, you only need to remember one password to rule them all. Think of all the headspace you'll free up! Maybe you can even pick up a new skill to fill that void in your head...
Check out LastPass here https://bit.ly/2xU1sPf or have a read of their full research https://bit.ly/37zkuYI.
And please don't give a random stranger your password on national TV like these folks... (an oldie but a still very relevant)