How to manage your sign on passwords

Submitted by Matthew Needham on Tuesday, 16 June 20093 Comments

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Is it me or are you finding that you need the memory of an elephant to remember all those passwords for all your different applications?

One solution, which I’m sure many follow, is to use the same password for each account. Problem with that though if one password becomes compromised, someone might get access to all your accounts and steal your identify or defraud you.

Not good. However, here is one solution which I’ve been trialing now for a couple of weeks and really works for me, plus it’s a very secure, combining numbers and letters.

Here we go. Most passwords require a minimum of 8 characters.

So, what I do is pick 3 letters, which can either be your initals or 3 random characters on your keyboard, for instance you could pick the letters ASD and move your fingers immediately above them and use QWE, then 2 digits, which could be your birthday, house number or wedding anniversary, then follow it up with 3 digits of the name of the site.

For example, for Amazon. You could have QWE30AMA or if you remember it better AMZ.

Easy…try it and see if it makes a difference to you!

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3 Comments »

Frode H said:

Take a look at: http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001691.html – Best password tip ever.

[Reply]

- 17 June 2009 at 9:58 pm

Barry W said:

I use a formula like this and the formula needs to change over time as many password policies require that you change your password periodically. To augment the approach, I keep all my passwords in SplashID. It ensure that the passwords are encrypted and I can retrieve them from my computer and synchronized Windows Mobile phone — by supplying the appropriate password of course

[Reply]

- 9 October 2009 at 12:41 am

Jason Brooks said:

Or you could use Robofom…

It stores loads of passwords and also form filling profiles so you can fill out forms when shopping or signing up to newsletters at the click of a mouse.

http://tinyurl.com/ydxumpl

[Reply]

- 9 October 2009 at 8:40 am