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4 Common and Dangerous Password Habits

February 4th, 2009

Dangerous Habit #1: Keeping passwords in Emails

When you’re trying to find a password management solution, you want to make sure that you can find your passwords when you need them. A lot of people turn to keeping their password in their email by sending themselves a message with their username and password. This method is totally insecure! Here’s why:

• If you are accessing your email from a non-SSL connection, people could be spying on your information. Once they gain access to your email account, they’ll have access to all your passwords.
• Some online email services mine your email in order to target advertisements. This mining process can include your login information.
• The text of your emails is usually kept in a plain-text database. This means that if your email providers database is compromised, so are your passwords.

Dangerous Habit #2: Keeping passwords written down

Imagine that you want to save the password to your online banking account, so you decide to write it down on a pad of paper on your desk. If you have $5,000 in your bank account, you’ve just turned that pad into a $5,000 pad of paper! Where would you keep that? If this is a practice you’ve adopted, the only place you can keep your various written passwords is a fire-proof vault!

Your passwords have value, and when you keep them hanging around your house, you’ve compromised the things which they protect. Most identity theft doesn’t happen through the internet, but is committed by people who dive through trash looking for scraps of paper with sensitive information on them.

Dangerous Habit #3: Using easy passwords

Be honest, I know you’ve done this at least once. You’re exhausted of passwords, passwords, passwords. So, you decide that you’ll be a little lazy and use a super easy password. It’s your birthday, your name, your mom’s name, your dog’s name, and so on.

This is password management 101. Weak passwords, such as the ones just mentioned, can easily be cracked by ahhem… people of mal intent! The #1 way you can protect your online resources, is to create strong passwords!

Dangerous Habit #4: Using the same password

Imagine you had one key. That key would open the front door of your house, start your car, allow you take money from the ATM, and open your filing cabinets at work. How awful would you feel if that key was lost or stolen? It’s easy to fall into the practice of having one strong password that you use for all of your online accounts, but dangerous. Not all websites are equally secure. Perhaps its unlikely that someone can steal your password from your online bank account, but is that forum you participate in as secure as your bank? If someone compromises that forum, and your password for that forum and your bank account are they same, does it make a difference.

Difficult though it can be, you’ve got try and create strong and unique passwords, especially for your more valuable online resources. By using the Mitto service, you can avoid all of these mistakes.