Use LinkedIn? Your password may have been obtained. Not so bad if you only use this password on LinkedIn and have since changed it, but we hazard a guess you use this password on other websites too. Maybe the same email as the username? Maybe the same password to get into the email which is used to reset passwords on other systems! We understand why this may be… we can’t all remember hundreds of passwords made from randomly generated numbers and characters. So we create a few passwords we do remember, then re-use them.
Therefor we recommend a process that will change the way you use and remember passwords forever. Use a password management system! A what?? A system (whether software or a website) to store your passwords and you can access them all with 1 master password. This sounds risky… what if the master password was hacked? Well, we think it more secure than having a few memorable passwords. Password management system developers are always striving to ensure their systems are as highly secure as possible. Your password data will be encrypted (and decrypted using your master password). No one can get your data without your master password. So you only need to remember ONE hard to guess, master password.
Some popular password management systems are 1Password, LastPass, RoboForm and eWallet. We particularly like 1Password. Your passwords are not stored online, but stored in an encrypted file on your computer. You can sync. between computers and mobile devices and tablets using Dropbox if you like. You need your Dropbox to use a secure password though, but the file will be encrypted even if anyone did get it.
It not only makes life a lot easier using a password manager, but in our opinion is more secure due to you having to remember only one secure password, and using very secure and hard to guess passwords on all your online accounts.