How to keep your passwords safe
A lot of us use the same password for many different places like apple, google, work and the now countless places that require a password.
But some of these sites get hacked downloading your login and password. This is being “pwned” (pronounced ‘owned’).
This compromises the other places you login like work, banking, Facebook etc.
It is really important to use strong, unique passwords for each site.
Identity theft can be truly awful, and you don’t find out until it is too late.
You can check if you have been pwned here and see if your login is known to be stolen:
haveibeenpwned.com
Password Managers
You can use a password manager, like LastPass or Dashlane to keep your passwords safe. These services store encrypted versions of your passwords so not even they know your passwords, while you can still access them easily. This allows for more complex and secure passwords as you don’t need to rely on your memory.
How to make a Secure password
If you want to remember a password, make sure the main part is strong (minimum 1 capital, 1 lowercase, 1 number and 1 non-alphanumeric) and add the first four letters of the site to make each password unique
e.g.
Main part: IH8logins!
Google password: IH8logins!goog
Facebook password: IH8logins!face
Apple password: IH8logins!appl
You get the idea. If you make your passwords unique with this method, having one account breached won’t put all of your accounts at risk.
But the important thing is to CHANGE your passwords.
I urge you to do it now. At least to your important passwords like banking, work, social media
Regularly. You can add the year if you like.
