Passwords and Password Managers

If you find yourself using passwords that look something like, t0dd1987$ (i.e. some combo of you or one of your family member's names plus a year), it is literally only a matter of time before your account is broken in to. Sophisticated (and even unsophisted) cyber criminals in every country in the world use automated tools to look up public information about you, your family, and any publicly available information about your company to guess common password patterns that people have been using for decades. Additionally, if you are reusing the same password (or a variation of it) on multiple sites, as soon as the first site is comprimised, your other accounts are basically as good as gone.

A better password would look something like, tc]Mxh1UJaXP4dmo, a totaly random selection of 16 characters (please don't use my example or a tweak of it, it is already on the open internet!). If your aren't convinced yet to worry about this, you should know that a bad password can easily cost your business tens of thousands of dollars that you will likely not be able to get back.

But comming up with a random password is hard, and remembering it is even harder! And how am I supposed to keep track of all the passwords I need for all of my accounts and find them when I need them in a hurry? This page will explain to you in plain english the basics of password security and how you can make your life easier (and more secure) using a helpful piece of software called a password manager.

What Does a Good Password Look Like?

A good password doesn't look like anything. In fact, a good password should look like total gibberish. Thats what makes it nearly impossible to guess! The problem with using easy words to remember is that is also easy for an automated software bot to guess and try thousands of times with different variations until it is finally able to get into your account. And the shorter your password is, the fewer number of tries it takes to figure it out.

You should also know that besides just guessing, it is also common practice for lists of passwords that have been stolen in cyber breaches of large companies to be listed on the Dark Web for purchase. Criminals will buy these passwords and try them out on many different sites to see how many accounts they can get into for they money they spent to aquire them. This has been the case for decades now and this is also why you must never reuse your passwords.

So, lesson number 1 is this: use the longest random password you can when coming up with an account password and keep it somewhere secure so you can use it when you need it. The longer and more random the password is, the less likely it can be guessed by computers.

The Notes App on Your Phone is NOT a Safe Place for Passwords

I'm making this topic its own little section. DO NOT EVER store passwords in your phone's notes application. Why? Because other applications on your phone can simply ask for permission to read whats in your notes app (and there are legitimate reasons why an app might want to do this). The second you give it permission to do so (like for a usefull looking calender plugin), that new app you installed can see all of your passwords you've saved in there. BAD!

Do NOT Take Pictures of Your Passwords

Again, another point that deserves its own section. Just like with your notes application, you have probably given many applications permissions to see what pictures you have on your phone (like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.). If you can see your password in a picture, so can every application that you've ever allowed to look at your photo library.

The Password Manager

The answer to the question, "how am I supposed to keep all my fancy random passwords straight and accessible" is a password manager. There is certainly a small learning curve to getting accustomed to using password managers, but trust me on this one thing, it is worth it. A password manager is a piece of software that you will install on you phone, your laptop, and any other computer you use on a regular basis, and its job is to safely come up with strong random passwords for you, store them safely, and give them to you when you need them.

A Short List of Some Reputable Password Managers

Since I would rather you pick a good password manager and start using it, rather than put off the decision and give criminals more time to act, I've put together a short list of vendors that I've personally used in the past. Check them out. They are all very cheap compared to the alternative.

Dropbox Passwords

Lots of small businesses already use Dropbox for file storage and sharing. Did you know they also have a password manager application? Dropbox passwords comes as an additional feature for all paying users of Dropbox.

1Password

1Password makes a user-friendly passward manager application that costs around $20 a month for small businesses. Its also suitable for businesses that might grow to hundreds of employees.

LastPass

LastPass might have had some bad press recently, but overall its still a solid password manager option. LastPass really seems to target larger corporations for their target audience, but its still worth mentioning as an option here.

Basics of Using Your Password Manager

There hardest part is to just get started; once you make it through the initial setup, you'll wonder why you never used a password manager before.