How do you manage?

[FROG MAN]

Between Home and the office I probably have 30-50 online login accounts. Everything from financial,stocks,credit cards,bill payments,business mfg,to the socializing accounts and email.My question is how do you keep track of all the usernames and passwords?

 

It would be nice to just have one or two usernames and passwords for everything but that is a No No from a security point of view.Maybe breaking them down into 5 or 6 groups say everything financial's is this username and password and bill accounts would be something else. I guess the best practice would be a separate password for everything but this would require using management software to keep track of them.

 

The problem is I use many different computers during a weeks time and this login thing is growing. Now were being prompted for your security answers because secure websites do not recognize more then one computer. Oh yea don't forget it's time to change your password at regular intervals.What started all this rant is My Yahoo account login said the other day there had been suspicious activity on my account and I needed to change my password?I'm not a fan of those security vault programs but something has to be done. Also there is the issue of how strong is your password? I guess using something easy to remember is out?Just curious what others are doing or If you even think about it? ID theft seems to be a growing business.

[silverdeer0454]

I use "ROBO FORM"

 

1 password to log in, it's encrypted, and keeps track of all my passwords.

 

 

http://www.roboform.com/

Edited August 26, 2009 by silverdeer0454
added link

[SilvrT]

I put yellow stickys with all that info on my 'puterz ....

 

 

seriously tho... RoboForm is good and if you know how, you can transport the info with you.

[Eck]

I tell them to my co workers so they can help me remember.........

[BurgyMon]

As far as password "strength" goes, use a combination of UPPER case, lower case, numbers and special characters (#*$%@!^&, etc) if allowed.

 

An example of a strong password: BoogyMan#123 ;

An example of a weak password: harley .(Ha, just couldn't help it!!)

 

Also, if allowed, you can use a short sentence for a password. Helpful hint, be sure, that when you change it, you note EXACTLY what it is, because, otherwise...you'll be up s*** creek w/o the proverberial paddle!!

[FROG MAN]

Robo Form looks like a $30 investment. Is it a better program worth the money vs one of the free download programs? Again the issue of multiple computers and keeping them updated. I'm giving my puter more and more control. The new dark ages LIFE WITHOUT A PUTER.Man thats worse then jail.Losing my Internet connection is almost as bad as a loss of blood pressure in my house.:rotfl:

[eazyduzzit]

Frog Man, you hit on one of my pet peeves. I have 6 different username/passwords to keep up with at work. The reason they are different is that each program assigned my username, and I have to change my password about every couple of months.

 

For a while, I used old girlfriends names as passwords, until I ran out (they won't let you reuse them). Now some of them make you use a combination word/symbol/number like Burgy Mon said.

The problem with these is that there is no way to remember them, so you have to write them down. I see co-workers passwords written down everywhere. Is this more secure???

 

One thing that bugs me is some of these programs shouldn't even be password protected. No one in their right mind would sneak onto my computer to look up truck parts. Mine is not a high level position.

 

Ok, that is just at work. My home computer has it's own set of passwords to keep up with. Luckily most of them can be remembered by Firefox, so I don't have to scratch my head every time I come here to talk about motorcycles.

[ablumny]

I use my Blackberry's Password keeper and refer to it often, more often as Im getting older !

[Patrick46]

I use my Blackberry's Password keeper and refer to it often, more often as Im getting older !

 

Just don't LOSE it!!!

[silverdeer0454]

The company that makes Roboform also has a program called Roboform2go..This holds all your passwords on a thumb drive. Just for grins and giggles I asked Roboform to make a password for this site...of course I didn't hit the last key to make the new password and here is what it came up with:

 

 

zlhL3H3aRhM9dczbsUemvJ3i7Yp

 

I don't have to remember this password it automatic and encrypted. All I have to do is remember 1(one) password that opens up Roboform. After that click on the site I want to visit and it enters the saved password plus logs me into the site.

[kenw]

I retired! Cut way down on the passwords!

[Ozlander]

For sites that don't have any financial info like this site and all of the other forums and places like that that I visit, I use the same user name and a simple password.

For sites that need more security, but not the max, I have another user name and a couple of more complex passwords.

For the sites that need the Max security, I have a complex username and a complex password or three.

I know every site is supposed to be different, but there's a limit to what I can remember and then there's always some site that whats me to change every year or two.

Makes it hard for an old fart.

 

When I was working, we had to change every month. I used 'lastnameyear month'

"somebody9908". Good as any.

[Bvinson]

The security division of the company I work for gave a 1 hr webex on how to create and manage passwords. The best take-a-way I got from it was a way to create a strong password that was specific to you and yet had no real meaning to anything related to you.

What I mean by that is that it had no old address numbers, girlfriends names, ect... You get the idea. I now have like 2 passwords I use for 90% of all my online activities.

 

To create a strong password use a sentence that is easy to remember such as.

 

I have 2 kids their names are Megan & Brad. Then you use the first letter form each of the words. The password would be IH2KTNAM&B.

 

The longer the sentence the more complex and secure the password.

 

Maybe this will help.

[SilvrT]

you can use this site to generate a secure password...

 

http://www.pctools.com/guides/password/

[LilBeaver]

...One thing that bugs me is some of these programs shouldn't even be password protected. No one in their right mind would sneak onto my computer to look up truck parts. Mine is not a high level position...

 

So next time I'm through Knoxville, I know what I'm going to be doing

I completely agree to some of these rediculus things. ADP (a program that I used to write estimates for automotive body repair) we had to enter a pw everytime we started a new estimate. We ended up with a post-it-note stuck to the monitor of the computer with the pw.

 

To address the question though, I have a hardcopy of a spreadsheet with my information on it - kept in my day planner (which houses most of my life anyways) and a spare copy in a safe at home. I do not keep a copy of it on my computer just in case my pooter gets stolen. If my planner gets stolen then I'm pretty much done for.

 

Sounds like one of these one password things that folks have brought up is worth looking into though.

[slick97spirit]

I use my Blackberry's Password keeper and refer to it often, more often as Im getting older !

 

I have a blackberry, but I don't know anything about a password keeper. Can you tell me how to access it?

[SilvrT]

I have a blackberry, but I don't know anything about a password keeper. Can you tell me how to access it?

 

 

uhhhhhhh... did they supply the password....

 

:rotf:

[timgray]

I use the same username, or if it's not available, one of my variants at every site.

I then use the same password SEED with a siteid for the site.

 

Example:

 

for VentureRider.org

user: timgray

pass:MyPassword65VentureRider

 

Honestly it's incredibly secure because 99% of all account cracking is done by a bot and the chances of them figuring out my password scheme is zero unless they have a keylogger on my computer. Then it don't matter if I use V Ser6S$%g674%G^xdft as my password as they get it every time I change it.

 

Dont think that keyloggers are rare, most viruses and trojans contain them. I spent several years as a Antivirus specalist taking apart viruses in a disassembler and watching them in a sandbox to see what they do. The new ones today are evil buggers that even fight being looked at.

 

Make it easy for you, (hard to get timgray at every website I go to) but complex for them and you will be fine.

 

Note: to increase your security, change the middle 2 digits every year or expand it to 4 digits and make it YYMM or MMYY or MYMY and change your passwords monthly.

 

I dont. Because it would take me a month to change all of them. Never had an account hacked by password guessing, had one hacked by the little turd sniffing the cablemodem stream when I logged intoa FTP site to upload website changes. Scared him good when I showed up at his door with a cop. I worked for comcast at that time, I had access to all IP records, his parents used to be comcast customers.

[hig4s]

Any online account that doesn't have anything to do with money (motorcycle forums, jeep forums, aquarium forums) I use the same user id and password.

 

At home I let firefox keep track for me.. which means sometimes when I'm at work or don't have my laptop with me and I can't remember a password I have to wait until I get home to access an account.

 

My home computer and my laptop are always turned off if I'm not using them and no one uses them but me. --- Passwords, firewalls, and such are fine, but physical security is your first and best line of defense.

[Redneck]

I use the same one for everything. The key to protecting yourself from identity theft is to be some one no one else wants to be.

[juggler]

As far as password "strength" goes, use a combination of UPPER case, lower case, numbers and special characters (#*$%@!^&, etc) if allowed.

 

An example of a strong password: BoogyMan#123 ;

An example of a weak password: harley .(Ha, just couldn't help it!!)

 

Also, if allowed, you can use a short sentence for a password. Helpful hint, be sure, that when you change it, you note EXACTLY what it is, because, otherwise...you'll be up s*** creek w/o the proverberial paddle!!

 

As a programmer I have to agree with that. So many people still don't understand the importance of good passwords.

[juggler]

I'm a programmer and systems administrator. I have passwords to dozens of online accounts both personal and professional plus I know the passwords to administer dozens of servers.

 

I do this so much that I just remember them all. NONE are written down. I'm just weird like that. It's the Geek in me.

[massey130]

i use an excel spreadsheet that is on my flash drive. then i use the password feature to encrypt the sheet. when i need credentials i can't remember, i open the spreadsheet after supplying a password. i had a friend who kept their passwords in their phone. the phone was picked up at a bar. it was bad, but not a disaster as the friend sobered up quickly & started making phone calls to credit cards centers and the bank when it opened. it was an expensive phone let alone the information that it carried.

 

i don't keep passwords in my computer or stored on a web site. wheni clean my browser up, i clean the password storage just in case.

[Guest Swifty]

For a while, I used old girlfriends names as passwords,

...now why didn't I think of that? I'll never run out of passwords now!

[Yammer Dan]

I use the same one for everything. The key to protecting yourself from identity theft is to be some one no one else wants to be.

 

 

Nah I won't say it!! TOO EASY!!:rotfl::rotfl: