Managing and creating passwords simply and safely
'Create new Password' … another password to add to the collection, it gets overwhelming. The average American has over 100 passwords on various sites and lost password problems take up as much as two hours a week and four full days each year.
So what's the best way to deal with all these passwords created with numbers, letters and special characters – CNET Senior Editor Nick Wolry offered some password advice, knowing that most Americans use just a couple of core passwords, with slight variations in each over and over.
"It's good to assume that your password is going to leak, even if you have good password hygiene … we want to mitigate the damage even if your password gets leaked," said Wolry.
Whatever you do, don't go with "123456," it's still the most commonly used password according to explodingtopics.com.
The problem with using one password with minor variations here is there, is that if hackers figure it out, they can really wreak havoc.
Wolry explained a common hacker tactic. "One thing they like to do is a brute force attack, that's where they are using software to test tens of thousands of password combinations at once," said Wolry. "Another one to be aware of is a keylogger, it's a type of malware and it's very covert. It will get installed on your computer, you won't even know it's there but it's tracking all of your keystrokes. So as you're typing your password, it reports back to the hacker."
When users have multiple online accounts and don't want to reuse the same passwords over and over, password managers are helpful tools that allow storage of all passwords in one secure place.
Password managers are an online service that provides an encrypted vault where login credentials for all online accounts can be stored, so you only have to remember one master password.
"They're a little bit of a pain to set up, but what a password manager does is create a separate password for all of your logins, so that you don't even need to remember your logins anymore…you only need one master password," said Wolry.
Password managers have two-factor authentication, so it's difficult for hackers to get access to that. "The only way someone could break in with your password manager is if they had your device and they had your passwords," said Wolry.
The best password managers are cross-platform-compatible and will automatically sync your entire vault across all of your devices.
And some suggestions of passwords to avoid, don't use "password," it's extremely common.
Other predictables Americans use are easy-to-guess names and birthdays. A Google/Harris Poll survey found that:
- 33% use a pet's name.
- 22% use their own name.
- 15% use a spouse or partner's name.
- 14% use their children's names.
