Password managers do more for you than just help you remember which password you used for different accounts. In this post, I am going to dig a little deeper into explaining what password managers do and how can they benefit your personal security and privacy.
A password manager is an app or cloud-based service where you can centrally store and manage login information for websites, apps and services that you use. This definitely comes in handy when you’re only accessing an account sporadically and find it difficult to remember your login information. It also secures your numerous credentials behind a single login.
Another great benefit is that you to create and store strong, secure, and unique passwords that would be next to impossible for most people to remember.
But how is this different from using the same or similar passwords for all your accounts? That’s where the increased security aspect of the password manager system comes in.
Problems You May Not Even Know You Have
One of the biggest security risks today is reusing the same password for multiple accounts. When you use one password, or even slightly modified versions of it, across all of your accounts, you make it easy for criminals to gain access to all of your accounts and services. When criminals break into sites with improperly stored passwords, they can then try to reuse those credentials on other sites and services to gain as much access and information about you as possible.
By using a password manager, you mitigate this risk by having strong, unique passwords for each site and service you use, thus making it impossible to use one site’s credentials to access another site or service. Also having strong, complex passwords makes it unlikely that your password can be guessed by password tools or by scavenging personal information available online.
Now, you may be asking, “Isn’t this just adding a single point of failure for your security?” To an extent it is, yes, however the benefits of having strong, unique passwords for each of your services far outweigh the risk of keeping your passwords in a single vault. Also, since this greatly reduces the number of passwords you’ll need to remember and keep track of, you can make your login password for the manager stronger than you might otherwise.
The Benefits of Using a Password Keeper
Keeping good password hygiene is increasingly essential for online security and privacy. As long as password-centric security exists, you’ll need a way to keep your passwords as strong and secure as possible, and for now using a password manager is one of the best ways to do that. There are a lot of password managers out there to choose from. TheWirecutter.com recently evaluated and compared popular password managers on the market to help you decide which one would best fit your needs.
If you are looking for more information on how to keep you and your company secure, the first step is to see where you’re at. An IT Security Assessment is the perfect solution for organizations that want to ensure that their security posture is the best. Contact us today if you need assistance with IT Security.