According to recent research consumers are fatigued by password overload, and almost 40% need assistance each month for lost or forgotten passwords. We all have so many passwords to track that keeping them in order can be challenging without the right tools. Lost passwords can be an inconvenience for people, but can be recovered fairly easily in most cases. Much worse than the inconvenience of not being able to find passwords however, is passwords that are not secure. Those pose the biggest threat and this too is far too common as well. Because people have so many passwords to keep track of, they rely on easy to remember passwords that they use on many different sites. This puts them in danger of having their sites and accounts hacked or compromised. Having important information about your business organized and secure is critical. Below are a few tips for doing that.
Managing Your Passwords
There is nothing worse than spending an hours looking for a password or software license that you need. Password is a simple, easy and automatic solution to keeping track of all of those things. I started using 1Password a couple years ago and it has made life a lot easier. No more digging through old emails to find the Lightroom license number. For me, software numbers in the past were harder to keep track of than passwords because many software companies don’t always have an easy system in place for retrieving a lost license number. 1 Password has eliminated this for me.
Onepassword is a simple, easy and automatic solution to keeping track of all of those things. I started using 1Password a couple years ago and it has made life a lot easier. No more digging through old emails to find the Lightroom license number. For me, software numbers in the past were harder to keep track of than passwords because many software companies don’t always have an easy system in place for retrieving a lost license number. 1 Password has eliminated this for me.
It stores all of your passwords, software license codes, credit card and bank account numbers. You can have multiple credit cards which makes check out a breeze. It also allows you to set up multiple identities which is nice, since filling out check out forms when online shopping can be tedious. It also has a built-in password generator which is a great tool for generating random very secure passwords.
Once of the best features is the synchronization between all your computers, including iPhone and iPad. You can use Dropbox or iCloud to store the 1Password master file, so all of your devices can access it. That means that if you are on one computer and change a login or password, it will be updated for all computers and devices. There is an app for iPad and iPhone, and then a desktop version for imac. 1 Password works with Windows as well, and allows you to sync between Windows and Mac.
Unsecured Passwords Put your Website and Business at Risk
Unsecured passwords pose the biggest threat. With so many passwords to keep track of many people pick ones that are easy to remember. Unfortunately that leaves you vulnerable to getting hacked. Using a Password manager like 1 password will also generate secure passwords for you.
Sucuri, a malware and security monitoring company recommends the following when creating passwords:
- Use both Upper and lower case
- Include special characters
- Include numbers
- Password should be longer than 10 characters
- Don’t reuse passwords
- Use a password manager
Go right now and get a password manager. It will take a little time to setup but once it is done it will save you so much time. Then once you have it setup, go and change the passwords on accounts that don’t match the criteria listed above. You’ll be glad you did.
