Are you always forgetting your passwords? Worried that your passwords are completely not secure? These are some great password tips!
For my first trick, I will read your mind. Close your eyes. Think of your favorite three passwords and picture them clearly. Hmmmm. It’s a little hazy, but I clearly see a relative’s name, a birthday, an anniversary, and maybe a small piece of your phone number. Impressed? You shouldn’t be. Though passwords are supposed to be random, we are all human. When told to choose something memorable, we take facts and figures that we will (hopefully) never forget, like our children’s names or an anniversary. This tendency greatly helps hackers trying to force their way into the innermost chambers of our secure Online Identities. On the other hand, if we try and randomize passwords and make them complex, we can’t remember them at all. There is nothing more frustrating than being locked out of your own account because you were trying to lock out everyone else! So, what’s a responsible human to do? Let’s learn some Password Picking survival skills.
Check out these two passwords: Password 1: Chulentisnevergreen!! Password 2: Ir~Gh^89d. Which is more secure? The answer may surprise you but according to Kaspersky’s password checker, using a standard home computer, Password 1 would take over 10,000 centuries to break, while Password 2 would take just 2 months! Why is that? The golden rule is: Length beats complexity. Since Password 1 is a whopping 21 characters and Password 2 is only 9, Password 1 is a much better choice. If we learn to choose PASSPHRASES instead of PASSWORDS they can be easy to remember AND really secure. So, choose a passphrase (bonus points if it contains a Hebrew word), throw in a random character and mix with a small pinch of uppercase letters. No healthy human adult should have trouble remembering that Chulent is never green!!
Another common problem is the vast amounts of passwords we use. We have passwords for banking, email, utilities, credit cards, health portals, government portals, online shopping…. On and on. Security gurus make it even more fun with well-meaning guidance: “Don’t ever re-use your passwords!!” If you do, should your one password get out, you are totally exposed. While we can remember a passphrase or twenty, it’s not feasible to remember so many of them. Here’s my secret method (please don’t share it with anyone). Mentally separate your password logins into categories; most important to least. Banking and email at the top, credit cards and health info next, eCommerce websites after that, and so on. Memorize and use just one phrase per category. This will mean that should any password get out, you will only need to update your password for the other accounts in that category. This will greatly reduce the number of Passphrases your poor brain will need to absorb.
“What if I STILL can’t handle all my passwords?” You my friend, will need to use a password manager. A password manager is designed to ingest all passwords and store them securely behind a single master password. Some common providers of this service are: Lastpass, Dashlane, and Roboform. I would urge you not to store your most critical passwords there, in case they get breached, but everything else is fine. That would leave you with just a few passphrases. Your most critical ones, and your Password Manager login.
No doubt about it, the password system is flawed. We will have to contend with it though till something better comes along. Until then, these tips will hopefully help us survive and keep our Online Identities, safe and secure.
I like to use old addresses for passwords + a character. It’s usually a string of numbers and letters that are technically otherwise meaningless. Could also be grandparents addresses or something you won’t forget easily.
Maybe you can come up with a Mamar Chazal related to that category , for example banking should be Hatorahchusaalmemoinum …
I use Lastpass and it’s been so helpful for me. I must have over 100 personal and business things I needs passwords for. My husband convinced me to start using Lastpass and it’s been so helpful. No more trying to remember what my passoword is or looking it up on an excel spreadsheet. Lastpass fills in the passowords automatically for me.
I usually use the first letter of each word of an entire phrase. For Example: I live on the 8th floor in my building. Ilot8fimb
Call mordy to present to your company- informative and just plain interesting.
I had a professor in a technology class who suggested you come up with one unusual phrase you use for everything, and then add three letters at the end to make it unique and specific to that site. For example, iLOVEcholent!GMA for gmail, iLOVEcholent!TDB for TD Bank, iLOVEcholent!EBA for ebay, etc. That way you only need to memorize one phrase and the last three letters are obvious to you based on the site, so whether you’re first making the password or coming back a year later and trying to remember it, you already know exactly what it should be. (I think this idea is perfect and yet I have never implemented it… go figure.)
You can have a note in your phone/laptop where you type in all your passwords, then lock that note. (I did with Face ID so I can get locked out!) and every time you need a password, you check the note to see what u wrote for that website.
what about ggole saving your password is that safe?
I have the same password for each site (a mix of letters and numbers) and then I add a capital letter of the website before each password so for example Amazon would be A(password)
Gmail is G(password), Instagram is I(password) so each site is different but easy to remember