How do you manage your passwords?

[Conshine]

There are so many passwords to remember nowadays. And you are really supposed to have a separate password for each account, or at least anything containing financial or important personal information.

Until recently, I used the same three or four passwords for everything, but thought that if one is found out, it could give somebody access to many more of my accounts. I am changing them all now, but how do others manage this?

I have about 30 different sites that I have a password to, from bank accounts, through to the likes of Amazon and the odd consumer site where I get a monthly newsletter.

Is putting them into an email and saving in your Hotmail account safe, ensuring that you have a ridiculously secure password to that?

Writing them down in some sort of code form could be possible, but not convenient to get a piece of paper out and decode the password every time.

Any other ideas?

 

[Satanta]

Any other ideas?

There are password management tools out there, like last pass, but they do come with their own risks (if someone got access to your LP account...).

I'm not specifically suggesting that one (big caveat, you're not suing me if it goes wrong ), but said I'd mention it so you could do your own research on it or other similar tools.

 

[Conshine]

But yes, thats one password that has to be cracked to find them all.. Quite risky I think.

 

[PaddyBloggit]

I use Last Pass and it's the best addon I've ever used with my browser.

 

[dahamsta]

KeePass is another option, it's standalone so it's less likely to interfere with your browser. You may want to segregate important from more important and less important with multiple databases.

 

[AlbacoreA]

Come up with a naming scheme of names and numbers that you can apply to everything. for example the number of your bus route, then the name of a favorite food. Mixed up with numbers and characters. So for AskAboutMoney it could be 045&Apple5!

Then check your combination is strong with a checker....
[broken link removed]

At the end of the day most passwords are recoverable. So its not that big a deal if you forget it. Then have one method for unimportant stuff, and another for important stuff. In effect a different password for everything.

 

[dahamsta]

The passwords suggested below are fine for non-commerce websites, but for commerce/banking/etc a random number generator should be used.

If you use a tool to manage your passwords, they don't need to be memorable.

 

[pudds]

For any financial type accounts including amazon/ebay etc I use a fairly long (secure) password like this for instance, doyoulikeaskaboutmoney

but instead of typing it on the home keys just type it on the row above and you get this e9697o8i3qwiqg975j9h36

Really only works 4 folk who can type without looking at the keyboard.

 

[horusd]

For any financial type accounts including amazon/ebay etc I use a fairly long (secure) password like this for instance, doyoulikeaskaboutmoney

but instead of typing it on the home keys just type it on the row above and you get this e9697o8i3qwiqg975j9h36

Really only works 4 folk who can type without looking at the keyboard.

Pudds that is super secure, but I'd be all day doin that!!!

When I opened an account with PTSB ( I think) they suggested I download a free program called "rapport".

Here is the spiel from the website. I find it works really well.

Rapport is a security software application that provides online identity theft and online transaction protection for consumers. You can use Rapport to protect your web browser sessions with any website that contains private or personal information. Examples include:
- Online bank accounts
- Mutual fund accounts
- Online brokerage accounts
- Email (such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail)
- Social networking sites (such as Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, and Linkedin)
- Insurance applications
- Personal medical information
- Online merchants (such as eBay, Amazon, Walmart.com, and Target.com)Rapport is entirely transparent and does not require you to change the way you work or sign into these websites. It does not require any configuration or maintenance; you simply install and browse safely. Rapport further protects specific identities and sessions.

http://www.trusteer.com/support/faq

Actually I might post this as a separate post because others might find it useful.

 

[PaddyBloggit]

Actually I might post this as a separate post because others might find it useful.

No need horusd ... all the info is here on this thread.

Some good recommendations here ... I must try them out.

 

[AlbacoreA]

Theres pros and cons to every approach, and the best thing to do changes as security changes. The risk with a password manager is that someone gets access to the master password then, they have everything. Otherwise its stronger than remembering passwords for sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_manager

But its more secure than most other people, and they'll go after the easy ones first (we hope). Also you have to be sure to make sure your computer secure. So that if someone nicks it, they don't get automatically logged into everything.

 

[Bronte]

All that kind of complication is way over my head. I've all my passwords printed out here on my desk, handy and reliable. Completely against the rules and my passwords are really simple and as near as possible in similarity as can be. My pin number for bank accounts though is in my head.