password managers

Here’s a quick test: Can you remember your passwords for all your online logins? Is that easy because you use the same one for everything and it is dead easy?

Don’t tell me, let me guess…

Well, then, you know your security is rotten. While we are all quarantined and spending more time online than ever before, this really is the best time to overhaul your online security. Indeed, there really are only two available slots in the security update calendar:

Do it now
Wait until it’s too late

The simplest and most effective way to ramp up your security is to use a password manager. There are a number of different service providers and they are all similar. At Graphic Violence, we use LastPass. Password managers enable you to use very strong, unique passwords for each of your logins without you needing to remember any of them.

Shared logins multiply the risk

Are you thinking that no one would bother hacking you? It doesn’t work like that. The hackers steal huge databases from the likes of Facebook and Netflix containing millions, even billions of user logins. They then run software that checks those logins on other sites, like eBay and Amazon. If you use the same password on all your sites, then they are all busted.

You won’t know your data has been stolen until you start getting bills for credit cards you don’t have

The hackers collate the data they get from multiple breaches and match it to your email. Data from all your accounts on the same login can be aggregated; date of birth, postal address, mobile phone number and then this bundle is sold to ID fraudsters.

You won’t know your data has been stolen until you start getting bills for credit cards you don’t have, payments on a car you have never seen and bills for mobile phones you’ve never used.

This video explains the risks hackers pose and how the use of password managers greatly increases your online security.