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Have you ever been hacked? Your password compromised? Regardless of the answer, let us at HowToHosting.guide tell you why you need good password management and why it is of utmost importance.
Password Management does not necessarily mean you need to use a many apps for it, but you need to keep your passwords in check.
Both software and hardware are evolving, so the need for stronger passwords arises every few years. Management is also crucial, as no matter how strong a password is, if you do not handle its security well and you mismanage it, you are bound to get your accounts breached.
What is Password Management?
New password requirements are set every few years, as hackers get more powerful tools to use into cracking passwords. Other security threats might happen if you mishandle your passwords.
Password management is what will help prevent most issues. Password management is a set of principles and best practices to be done by any user, while they are storing and managing passwords. They should store and manage passwords in an efficient manner to secure them as much as possible to prevent unauthorized access.
Here are some of the best practices used in Password Management:
- Use strong passwords – longer than 10 symbols, small and capital letter, a digit
- Have a unique and separate password, entirely different for each website you access
- Reset passwords every few months or around half a year
- Configure two-factor authentication for important accounts
- Do not share passwords with friends, family, and colleagues, unless you do it securely
- Enforce secure password policies within your business environment if required
- Periodically check for password breaches and take necessary actions
Password management can sometimes become overwhelming if you do anything to the dot and you perform it manually. That is where Password Management Tools come into play.
Password Management Tools
Many Password Management tools exist. Let us start with password generators. Those are tools that create a strong random password for you.
Some password generators have an app that can be installed, some just a website. Usually they have parameters that you can select and de-select about the symbols you want to have in your password. The idea is to generate passwords and copy them or write them down on paper.
Next are Password Managers. Password managers are professional management tools created by companies to ensure the security of your passwords and ease up on the manual work involved with handling passwords.
Password Managers have an encrypted and secure service that checks your passwords for breaches, changes them if needed, stores them and lets you log in to websites with one click.
Here are some Password Management Tools worth mentioning:
- Google Password Manager
- BitWarden
- LogMeOnce
- 1Password
- Keeper
- LastPass
A lot more Password Management Tools exist and you should check with free ones and see if you like them, if you consider buying a truly professional and secure password management tool.
Is It Safe to Use a Password Manager?
Let us start by saying that you being on the Internet alone is not 100% guaranteed safety. Computer systems are vulnerable to outside attacks. However, using a password manager is safe enough to be recommended.
The benefits of a password management tool outweigh its one drawback. The database of the program you are using could get compromised and be exposed to hackers. That does not happen often, but it is not unheard of either. You have no control over how secure a database is, so you cannot do anything about that.
What you can do is to change your password when you have been notified of a breach or notice strange activity.
In very rare cases, when hackers reroute a website to send changed passwords to their own servers, it is advised to NOT change your password. That is due to your unchanged password being on an encrypted database that the hackers cannot hack into.
So, to summarize, there are things that are out of your reach, which do not happen often and you should definitely not lose any sleep over. Use a password management tool to ease up your life, or if you prefer, a password generator and handwrite your passwords to a sheet of paper if you like things old-school.
A Pro Tip for you – do not have your browsers save your passwords – that can be easily exploited still, if you are targeted by hackers.
Conclusion
Password Management is the way you store and manage storage for your passwords. The human factor is the most important security measurement that you need to consider.
It is important because if hackers get access to even one of your accounts or passwords, they might get access to more and make a huge mess. They could steal information, your identity, files, and private data or banking details. It is no laughing matter and you should take it seriously.
Whether you use more conservative methods for password management, such as writing passwords down on paper or never sharing them, is up to you. You could also try using password management tools which are free and open-source like BitWarden for more important websites.
Read our related articles on security:
Shared Hosting Security Risks in 2021
How to Change Password in WordPress
WordPress Admin Password – How to Change It