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Passwords: Manage Passwords Safely--and Simply |
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Anne Kandra
From the April 2003 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Thursday, February 27, 2003
You're doing a little Web browsing at work when you come upon Widgetsnmore.com, a site that looks vaguely familiar. Suddenly, you see it: the multipurpose electronic gadget polisher you've coveted for weeks--and it's half price until 5 o'clock today! You click on the image to order it, and...uh-oh. The site asks for your password. What do you do?
a. Enter your cat's name--you use the same simple password at every site.
b. Frantically type word-and-number combinations you've used in the past.
c. Set up a brand-new account.
d. Give up, exit your browser, and learn to love your dull, unpolished gadgets.
e. Confidently enter drk#3kl8nfl and complete the transaction.
If you chose e, congratulations. You obviously have an advanced degree in password management. (Bonus points if you recently changed that password from its predecessor, wr&98zflg.)
If you answered anything but e, you're invited to join the Problem Password Club. (True confession: Until I wrote this column, I would have chosen b.) For what it's worth, we're in the majority. A recent study by Jupiter Research shows that over half of the consumers it surveyed used the same user name and password at all or most of the sites they visit.
It's dangerous to be loose with passwords. If you use names or words, a hacker can use a program that tries the whole dictionary to access your account. And if you use the same password everywhere, a successful hacker can access your whole online life by breaking one code, says Rob Leathern of Jupiter Research.
Continued at PCWorld
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