EBYX Center

Five years ago, when online, you might have had just one password to remember for your email address. These days though it’s not uncommon to have 20 or 30 passwords for innumerable web services that you’re a customer of. So what happens? Lots of people are inclined to use the very same password for all or nearly all the services they’ve signed up to. Some people may not think their Facebook photo gallery as being hugely important, but it is if you’re utilising the same password as you are for your PayPal account. Of course, the convenience of having to remember just one password is compelling, but what if someone gets their mitts on that single password? You guessed it, they in theory have access to all of the servives you’ve signed up to that share that very same password. And if you think they don’t know the other services you’ve signed up to, it isn’t necessary. They can launch programs which examine thousands of services and try to match your account name/password pair that they already have.

This is a problem we all have to consider, but it can be solved. In actual fact, you don’t need to remember every account name/password. Let your browser do it. Be it your Bebo sign in or Email password. Ask your web browser to remember each username/password, and then have a master password just in case a person gets hold of your computer. If they do so, they will have to type in the master password in order to login to any of the services you’ve signed up to. So in effect, you can join hundreds of services, and only need to actually remember one single password : your master password for your web browser.

When creating passwords, make them random and long, such as X4563Jde34 which is a variety of numbers, lower and upper case characters. Since it’s not required to remember them yourself, be as obscure as you wish. A word of warning : don’t use normal phrases as a password, as these are elementary to identify for 3rd parties.