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Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don’t let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months
Clifford Stoll
As much as we may hate them, passwords are a necessary part of our daily lives. They are used to protect all kinds of personal information such as your credit cards, bank account, medical information, loyalty accounts, email account, taxes, and pretty much anything else you do online. The challenge with passwords is that if someone else knows it or can guess it, they can get into your accounts and steal your information.
With the increase in data breaches, the likelihood of this occurring continues to increase. Bad actors can get access to people’s usernames and passwords via online databases that contain this information. If you use the same password for more than one account, hackers can use the breach’s data to log in to other accounts that belong to you. While the number of data breaches fell 48% in 2020, the number of records compromised increased by 141%, a total of 34 billion records! This is why you need a different password for each of your online accounts.
So how do I use a different password for every site when I have so many of them? According to a study commissioned by NordPast, they found that the average person had 100 online accounts last year! It is impossible to create a unique password for each site, right? Yes, it is. I don’t know anyone that can remember 100 different passwords. That’s why you need a password manager.
What is a password manager?
A password manager is a software that keeps track of all of your passwords for you. Most of them will also autofill usernames and passwords on the sites you log in to and sync your passwords across multiple devices. There are many different password managers from which to choose. According to CNET , one of the best ones for 2021 is LastPass, the solution that I decided to start using years ago to manage all of my passwords.
Why LastPass?
I started trying LastPass because it was free. It synced passwords across my computer, phone, and other devices. There’s also a Chrome extension that, once you log in, auto-fills all of your online usernames and passwords that you have saved to LastPass. Also, it was super easy to use.
How to Get Started
To sign up for LastPass, all you need is an email address and a strong master password. I chose to create a passphrase that was 30 characters long but easy for me to remember. An example of this (but not my actual passphrase) would be “ThisIsMySup3rL0ngPassphr@ze”, Once you are signed up, LastPass goes to work. If you’ve loaded the Chrome extension and sign in to LastPass, LastPass prompts you to save your username and password for any site you haven’t already saved in LastPass.
Extra Secure
For added security, LastPass allows you to set up multifactor authentication. To get started, log in to your LastPass account, click on settings, and then multifactor authentication. You can choose from one of several authenticator apps to use. I already had Microsoft Authenticator on my phone, so I decided to set up that. After you pick your app, open it on your phone, scan the on-screen QR code, and you’re all set! The next time you log in, you will get a code on your phone that you will need to enter after you log in the next time you sign in to LastPass.
Fun for the Whole Family
The paid version of LastPass adds a bunch more features like a security dashboard, dark web monitoring, and emergency access. I upgraded to the family version, which is only $12 more per year than the paid version, to add all my family members. LastPass allows you to add up to six. Now, each of us has our own account with our own saved passwords, but we can also share account passwords. For example, I created a “shared streaming accounts” folder where I store our credentials for sites like Netflix and Hulu.
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you to change the way you manage your usernames and passwords. You can sign up for LastPass Premium here:
LastPass Premium
If you want the family version, you can sign up here:
LastPass Family
If you don’t currently use a password manager and don’t want to try out LastPass, I hope you find another password management solution. It’s for your own good.
