Do you keep your login and password information written down on Post-it Notes or pieces of paper near your desk? If so, you should consider using a password manager. When you dispose of your password, you should use a paper shredder to dispose of the note. Do not place it directly in a trash bin.
While remembering login information and passwords for all your accounts may seem difficult, writing down passwords on a piece of paper or on a Post-it Note is dangerous. If criminals find your passwords, they may be able to log in to your computer and gain access to your organization’s network.
Try to create passwords that are easy for you to remember but hard for other people to guess. Or, try using a password manager to help you safely manage your passwords. If you need help keeping your passwords safe, contact your IT team or review your organization’s password policies.
A few recommended password managers:
- Bitwarden
- 1Password
- Dashlane
Initially written by wired.com
PASSWORD MANAGERS ARE the vegetables of the internet. We know they’re good for us, but most of us are happier snacking on the password equivalent of junk food. For nearly a decade, that’s been “123456” and “password”—the two most commonly used passwords on the web. The problem is, that most of us don’t know what makes a good password and aren’t able to remember hundreds of them anyway.
The safest (if craziest) way to store your passwords is to memorize them all. (Make sure they are long, strong, and secure!) Just kidding. We need to offload that work to password managers, which offer secure vaults that can stand in for our memory.
Most web browsers offer at least a rudimentary password manager. (This is where your passwords are stored when Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox ask if you’d like to save a password.) This is better than reusing the same password everywhere, but browser-based password managers are limited. In recent years, Google has improved the password manager built into Chrome, and it’s better than the rest, but it’s still not as full-featured or widely supported as a dedicated password manager like those below.
The reason security experts recommend using a dedicated password manager comes down to focus. Web browsers have other priorities that haven’t left much time for improving their password manager. For instance, most of them won’t generate strong passwords for you, leaving you right back at “123456.” Dedicated password managers have a singular goal and have been adding helpful features for years. Ideally, this leads to better security.
WIRED readers have also asked about Apple’s macOS password manager, which syncs through iCloud and has some nice integrations with Apple’s Safari web browser. There’s nothing wrong with Apple’s system. In fact, I have used Keychain Access on Macs in the past, and it works great. It doesn’t have some of the nice extras you get with dedicated services, but it handles securing your passwords and syncing them between Apple devices. The main problem is that if you have any non-Apple devices, you won’t be able to sync your passwords to them. All-in on Apple? Then this is a viable, free, built-in option worth considering.