Winter 2019Password security

ABOUT THE WRITER

Rob Gibbons has run an IT support business for over 14 years and has a wealth of knowledge on how to get the best out of infrastructure for businesses whilst ensuring the network is optimised for productivity.

Let’s not cover over old ground here by telling you that your password isn’t good enough. If this is the case, then you have only got yourself to blame.

Passwords are now unavoidable in modern life. We need them for our phones, our computers, our emails, for websites, apps, and much more.

Have you ever needed to reset a password for something crucial – like your bank account – and found that the reset process is simply to click a link that was sent to your email?

The idea of someone accessing your email is terrifying, but preventable.

Protecting yourself is as easy as creating unique, mixed symbol passwords that aren’t easily figured out from basic details of your life.

I once read a saying that really hit home with me: ‘If you can remember your password, then it’s not complex enough!’

Let’s face it, we all have passwords we can remember. And, furthermore I bet everybody has a password they use multiple times!

Keeping your passwords strong is vital to your digital safety, but it isn’t enough. You also need unique passwords for all of your devices, apps, and websites. That way, if a hacker somehow finds out one of your passwords, they don’t immediately gain access to everything else.

We have a lot of passwords these days and keeping them all unique and secure can be a lot to handle. The idea of trying to remember them all or writing them down or finding a way to keep them secure digitally causes many people to fall back into the pattern of using the same password everywhere.

Instead, I’d like to share a solution with you, where you can store all your secret credentials in a safe, secure location.

One way to keep track of your passwords is to use a password manager that will keep your login information organised and safe. I recommend LastPass to my clients which is probably one of the industry leaders for password management.

Take the stress away and let LastPass do the work for you.