With the ever-increasing number of online accounts, how do you keep track of all those usernames and passwords? More importantly, how do you ensure that each service has its own unique password? If you’re like most people, you’re probably using the same password for most of your accounts—and that’s not safe. If your one password gets stolen because of a breach, it can be used to gain access to all your accounts and your sensitive information. Keeping track of online credentials and ensuring each one has a unique password is why you should use a password manager.
What is a password manager?
A password manager is software created to manage all your online credentials like usernames and passwords. It stores them in a safe, encrypted database and also generates new passwords when needed. A password manager can even store things like secure notes, credit card numbers, SSNs, passport information, and addresses. It can even store certain types of multi-factor authentication methods like TOTP – read more on MFA here.
Because the password manager stores all your passwords, you don’t need to memorize hundreds of passwords or keep that secret password paper in your drawer. Now, you only need to remember one (really good!) password to unlock your vault in the password manager app. Much easier, right?
What are the advantages of using a password manager?
Password managers not only let you manage hundreds (or thousands!) of unique passwords for your online accounts, but they can also offer other advantages. Some password managers can alert you if one of your passwords has been leaked in a data breach, or allow you to easily share a passwords across multiple team members in a secure way. They can even help you be more productive by saving you time when logging into a website.
- Saves you time
- Enables secure password sharing with team members or outside entities.
- Works across all your devices and Notify you of potential phishing websites operating systems
- Protects your identity
- Notifies you of potential phishing websites
Why do you need to use a password manager?
Passwords are inherently insecure. Let’s face it: it’s hard to remember a good password. A good password is long, unique, and doesn’t contain a common word or phrase. So what do most of us do? We pick a short password that’s easy to remember and easy to reuse for multiple accounts. Check out Have I Been Pwned to see if one of your frequently used passwords has been leaked in a data breach.
Until more services support passwordless authentication (more on that in an upcoming article!), it’s important to use long, unique passwords for every online account.
Do you need help deploying a password manager for your business?
We’d love to chat! Schedule a free 15-minute discovery call with someone from our team today!
P.S. if you’re looking for a new IT service provider, check out our guide that covers how to choose your next IT service provider for some quick tips to get you started!
