Recycling often saves money and nature, but there is one thing you should never recycle: your password. When talking about passwords the focus is often in password strength. And password strength is an important issue. But we
lazy people
sometimes get tempted to shortcut – As a countermeasure many web services have included a password strength indicator on the signup page.
lazy people
sometimes get tempted to shortcut – As a countermeasure many web services have included a password strength indicator on the signup page.
Years of password education has resulted in most people understanding what a strong password is and how to create one. (For those who don’t know: At least 8 characters of letters in lower and upper case, numbers and symbols if the system allows them). So in theory password security should not be an issue, right?
Unfortunately this is not the case. What has happened is many of us memorize a strong password and recycle it on multiple websites.
According to a British study a whopping 73 percent of people recycle their online banking password on other sites. Another study claims the percentage is even higher, 76 percent And not only that, but nearly half use the same user name and password combination to login to other websites!
Why is this a significant threat? Imagine you use the same password for Facebook, Gmail, Amazon and your online bank. What happens if someone cracks your password? They have access to basically everything. Now that’s a pretty scary scenario, isn’t it? But very convenient when you need a bit of a motivational boost to create new passwords. Create a unique, strong password for each site you consider important or sensitive.
Having a unique password on each site limits the damage of a possible breach. This issue has become increasingly important due to several recent high profile data breaches – hackers have published thousands of passwords they have acquired, causing a great deal of anxiety and worries to people affected.
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