Is Your Password 123456?

Security is only as good as the password protecting it and from a recent evaluation of 32 million breached passwords it appears that security is still lacking 50% of the time. It’s like securing a barn door with a stick through the hasp instead of a lock.

Researchers at Imperva analyzed millions of passwords that were hacked from rockyou.com and published in a database on the web. The results?

Source: Imperva.com

Using the same password for multiple logins is also a security breach. If one password is hacked it opens up all your logins.

So, what do you do? Use a password manager.

Using the ‘remember my passwords’ option in your browser is NOT secure, especially in Internet Explorer. Firefox gives you the option of using a master password which makes it a little more secure.

Instead of trying to remember complex passwords there are several software solutions where you only have to remember one password and they do all the rest. Most will even fill in online forms for you. They’ll also generate strong passwords – since you don’t have to try and remember them, you’ll be that much more secure.

One of the most popular browser-based programs is called RoboForm. While it has a free version it’s only limited to 10 logins. The Pro version is only $9.95 and can be used on multiple computers.

Another browser-based option is LastPass (free for computers, premium for smartphones)

If you want a non-browser based password protector, we’ve used the free Password Corral for years to store not only browser passwords, but software keys, combinations for locks and safes and anything else we want to keep encrypted or you can try KeePass, the free and open source password manager.

So there’s no longer any excuse for using simple passwords in this age of increasing identity theft, is there?