You’re Going to Get Hacked Because of Your Horrible Passwords

Twitter recently urged all its users to change their password right now. The powers-that-be discovered some bugs in their system that could pose potential risks to password security.

Most of us have a lot of logins. I have hundreds, maybe thousands. Seems like every website and app makes you set up an account.

It can get out of hand. And it can be frustrating. How am I expected to remember a thousand different logins?

I used to use the same password for everything. That solved the frustration of having all those accounts.

Or did it?

As the web has exploded with growth over the past decades, so has the evil genius of hackers. They’ve got insane ways of figuring out passwords. And they’re constantly getting insaner.

Unfortunately, this means that my use of “Corey123!” for every login isn’t such a good idea.

Not only that. It also means I need to change my passwords often.

So I began coming up with strong, secure passwords, generating them through Strong Password Generator or something similar. Then I’d open up a text file and paste in the login info. More of a pain, but more secure, right?

Not quite.

Short of storing passwords in a handwritten notebook that you keep in your back pocket at all times, there’s no 100% secure way.

But there are ways that come close. The best we have right now are password managers. Once you set up your account with them, you only have to remember one secure password to access all your logins.

I use 1Password, which I love. I’ve also used LastPass, which is also very good.

Part of what I do is make websites for people. This also involves setting up other services for them, like social media, mailing lists, emails, and analytics. Sometimes they have existing accounts that I get access to. Nearly every time, I’m brought to tears by the horrible simplicity of their passwords.

Account hacking is real. I see it happen every day on social media. My friend who posts every day about his family suddenly posts about a great deal on Ray-Bans.

So I implore you. Throw a few bucks at a good password manager (they’re very cheap), and protect yourself.

And keep me from weeping bitterly when I have to log into your account.

UPDATE | January 25, 2019: Check out VPN Geeks’ article “14 Ways to Create a Secure Password in 2019 (That you’ll Remember)”