Passwords
are important. Some are long, some short, some strong and some weak. Short
passwords are easy to remember but they are prone to hacking. It is suggested
to have long and strong passwords using a combination of alphabets, asterisks and
numbers. Experts say people should have different passwords for different ids.
Passwords are like keys to treasure vaults.
You must have heard that the Facebook or Gmail id of someone was hacked and he
lost access to it. It is like someone storming into your house and taking away
all your valuables and you cannot do anything about it.
When we store important data in mail ids,
it is important to secure them with strong and unique passwords. Sometimes we
do not take the effort to secure our mail ids seriously in the belief that we
do not have any sensitive data. This kind of a mistake could be dangerous
because our mail ids are linked with our bank accounts. Hackers—if they can get
an access to your mail id—can ask for a new password from your bank and your
account can be milked dry.
It is required to have different
username/password combinations for different accounts. Online users should not use words such as their name, spouse name,
pet name, date of birth, 1234, 123456, letmein or similar words as their passwords.
Hackers use a technique to break
into anything you access just to figure out your standard password, and then storm into your other online accounts. This technique of
hackers doesn't work if users don't use the same password everywhere.
These suggestions are good and safe. But it
is difficult to remember the passwords of every account we have online. Some bloggers like
Amit Agarwal suggest making a password tree to remember user name and passwords
of different mail ids. Some others suggest using password managers.
People with several ids online can use
password managers such as Roboform, KeePass and many others to manage passwords. These
tools store
all your passwords in an encrypted format and allow you to use just one master
password to access all of them. It will also automatically fill in forms on Web
pages, and you can even get versions that allow you to take your password list
with you on your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), phone or a USB key.
Portable password managers are recommended
when you neither want to save passwords online nor on any computer's hard disk drive.
Saving passwords on public computers increases the risk of someone accessing
them in your absence. KeePass is a tool that is available in a portable avatar
that can be safely carried on a USB flash drive, CD or even on an iPod. KeePass
and similar application software runs without installation and won't leave any
trace once the USB stick is plugged out of the computer.
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