How to Remember your Passwords

We are frequently asked about how to remember all the passwords to live our lives and manage our businesses. The answer is simple and straight forward. Password management tool!

What is a password management tool and why do you need one?

We live in a world where our information is publicly available online, and our use of the internet to pay bills, manage financial accounts, and keep in touch with friends and influencers alike places our personal and financial information at risk of theft.  Thieves are becoming very good at social engineering (more to come on this at a later date) their way into your personal accounts through the quizzes you take and games you play online reveal information needed to pretend to be you online and may even reveal passwords you may use such as those containing names of pets, children, vacation spots, favorite teams, important dates, etc.

How do you protect yourself? 

Answer: Never reuse passwords and keep your passwords complex enough to withstand brute force attempts at guessing them.  This means you should not use important dates, names of loved ones, significant events, etc. as part of your passwords.  Oh, and never write your passwords down in a notebook, on a sticky note, under your keyboard, on a cabinet door above your monitor, or anywhere you cannot encrypt and conceal from prying eyes.

Now your brain is about to explode at the thought of trying to come up with and remember all the different passwords you need to along with their complexity requirements in order to live your life, allow us to bring you some reprieve.  Invest in a password management tool.  These tools allow you to keep track of every website you log into and the usernames and passwords you use.  Those we recommend also offer password history and secure password generation tools built in.  All you need to remember is the password to log into the tool and decrypt the data from your computer, web browser, or mobile device.  You can also make the tool more secure by using multi-factor authentication.

When you visit a website stored in your password management tool, simply unlock the password vault and the tool will automatically fill in your credentials.  No more searching for the password or leaving your password exposed.

Some of the items a password management tool can help you keep track of:

– Logins for websites
– Passwords used for computers/mobile device unlocking
– Membership ID numbers (frequent traveler, insurance, gym, etc.)
– Wi-Fi network passwords
– Secure notes
– Shared password vaults for shared accounts
– Many more..

Additionally, if you are not sure if your password has been exposed in a data breach, most good password management tools allow you to check your passwords against a database of known password breaches.

Contact us to discuss your specific password management needs, and we can help you select the best solution for you, your family, and your business.