Are you concerned about your online password security? Of course you are. With all the data breaches resulting in the loss of financial information, social security, and personal information, you know what’s going on out there.
But do you take the advice experts give about periodically changing your passwords? If you do, you’re in the minority. Even in the wake of the Heartbleed bug, the Target security breach, and countless bank snafus, the most popular password is “password” and the most popular PIN remains “1234.”
Password management tools create, store, and apply truly unique passwords that will give you much more protection than numbers you remember like the kid’s birthdays, your old phone number, and your hometown zipcode.
Don’t Pass Up Password Management
Download free software from sites like LastPass and Roboform. When you log into your usual sites, such as Facebook, the tool pops up to record and remember the details. Those details—your password, PIN, and other hoops you jump through to reach your account—are kept in cloud-stored vaults. Each time you go back to a password-protected site, the vault opens and delivers your information, saving you all that hassle of calling up whatever document you created to store all that information or worse, trying several options only to get locked out of the account.
LastPass and Roboform will generate passwords for you if you aren't up to the task. You can set password length and replace old ones by accessing a site’s password change function to be replaced with a unique, auto-generated password, PIN, and other information that is saved to your vault. You can also visit the vault to edit, organize, and move around information.
Both Roboform and LastPass provide free services like credit monitoring and password security review. You can purchase premium services to cover multiple devices and users, ensuring that employees who are lax about creating strong passwords have it done for them. The services work with Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms, mobile formats, and can be added to functions supported by the major browsers.
Extra Authentication Provides Extra Password Security
You can also turn to authenticators that require a second step before accessing an account. You've probably seen examples: they ask for the name of your first pet, your first car, and so on.
Providers like Google and Microsoft, and security firms like Trooper and Transakt provide authentication for mobile devices. Many are integrated with password management services and are free. They protect against phishing, email bots, hacking, keylogging, and other dangers out there while preserving your password security. More sophisticated services offer fingerprint and smartcard authentication for a fee, or provide a thumbdrive or other device to attach to your computer when accessing your password management site.
Let Them Know When You Go
Ever wonder what happens to your social media accounts when you pass away? Will they linger with your memory? Will your Twitter followers wonder about your silence and your Facebook friends about neglected candy or farms? Password management tools let you share your vault with trusted parties such as family or your chosen executor, making their tasks a little easier when you’re gone.
There's lots of reason to take advantage of password management tools, but even if you choose not to use a tool, you need to take password management seriously.
