What to do:
Take an afternoon, sign up on a password manager and reset the passwords for all the sites you use to unique and strong passwords. It will take a whole afternoon.
Why do it?
It’s been said many times before that you should have a different password for each of the websites you have an account with. Very little actually bother. Why? Instead of having a standard easy to remember password for all your accounts, like EasyPassw0rd123… now you’ll have to have have convoluted one like “LwBl8u2r&@CEXaU8” for each of the sites you use.
What’s the risk? Low, to be frank. Most big names like Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon and Google employ sophisticated systems and measures to ensure that their passwords don’t get leaked and are secure from hackers. Not to say that the big boys have not had their share of troubles.
But… if you are customer of a mom & pop web store and they get hacked… the hacker would have your email address, and password. If your password was recycled with the one you use at your bank, then he would have access to that account as well. That kinda scares me.
Some years ago, I signed on with LastPass which is an online password manager. You have a master password with LastPass, and LastPass stores and protects the log-in info for all your other websites. I spent a couple of hours changing passwords of all my subscribed sites with secure ones. It will even automatically fill in log in form of the site when you visit it.
The free version will run on your PC’s web browser. I used the free service for several years. Pay for premium only if you need to have access to your passwords on your IOS or Android device.
Sign up with LastPass here.
Full disclosure: this is an affiliate link and your sign up to Lastpass Premium goes towards supporting this site.
