A very important thing that I continue to see people doing is keeping their passwords in unsecured locations. Some people write them down on pieces of paper they keep around their computer, others keep notes on their phone or a Microsoft Word or Excel file. Simply put, these are bad places to keep passwords and doing so only makes you vulnerable.
For this need I highly recommend LastPass, one of the premiere password management solutions. At only 12 dollars per year with software that works on your PC, MAC, iPhone or Android you’d be stupid not to. Not only can it keep passwords, but it can also store notes, images and files. For example, things like a copy of your passport or your child’s social security number.
When creating a new password you should always ensure your password is complex. For many of you the idea of a strong password is something no one can guess like a word or phrase. That’s simply not enough. A password should be at least 12 characters long and be complex, 1 Upper Case, 1 Lower Case, 1 Number and 1 Special. Check out this website to test your current passwords. You’ll see how easy it is to break them. My rule of thumb is to use the maximum password allowed for the website you’re on. Websites like Amazon let you have passwords that are 64 characters long. That’s going to take someone 297 Octillion Years to crack. The great thing about LastPass is that it can help you to generate these passwords randomly when you need to create or change a password. The only thing you’ll need to remember is you LastPass master password. You can then use LastPass to quickly login to a website.
Oh and for those of you that are married, you and your spouse can use the same account between your phones and computers to ensure you don’t have to pay for two accounts. Certainly helps when your spouse changed a password, but forgot to tell you.
If you and your in-laws for example also use LastPass, you can provide them emergency or immediate access to your passwords, so if something happened to you or them, you’d be able to access one another’s passwords or will electronically.
Finally, LastPass let’s you quickly check your passwords and email addresses for how secure they are. Then you’ll know which you need to change.