Are You Taking Good Care of Your Password?

Submitted by georgiana on Thu, 08/26/2010 - 03:37.

I do a fair amount of password assistance at my job and I've noticed that people tend to use obvious passwords that are quite easy to guess. I see people using the password "password" – sometimes they jazz it up with a zero instead of an o – and I also see them using a series of stars. There is also the ever popular 123321 and its variations.

If you're trying to read an article at a free site that requires registration having a weak password isn't that big a deal. But if you have a weak password and use the same password for your banking you could be in very big trouble.

Which brings me to my next concern. It's human nature to use the same password at a multitude of sites. But this can lead to trouble. There are tons of apps that access your accounts at sites like Twitter. When you give the app permission to access your account you're assuming whoever wrote the app has the ability and inclination to guard your password. Maybe everyone on Twitter is suddenly using an app that counts how many times they use the letter q and comparing their scores. It's fun to jump on the bandwagon but do you know that your password will be secure? It's definitely something to think about.