Mia
You have surely heard about headlines about individuals dealing with data breaches, identity theft, and other online dangers. The reasons are diverse, and often a lack of strong passwords is one of them. Passwords are like keys to encrypted vaults, so it matters greatly what types of passwords you choose for your accounts.
So, what practices do you employ when setting passwords? Do you use the same one for all your accounts? Do you reveal personal information in your passwords? Do your passwords consist of only a few words, not a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers? Then you have poor password hygiene, which opens the door for hackers to steal your information. This is a sign that you need to start using a password manager. With the help of a password manager, you can set strong passwords and increase the security of your accounts.
In this article, we will analyze more signs that are telling you to finally welcome a password manager into your life. Are you ready to discover them? Keep reading.
You Have Poor Password Hygiene
Technology has brought us a long list of advantages, but it also comes with the costs of cyber threats, which exploit human errors worldwide. These threats pose a danger both to businesses and individuals, and the consequences of poor cyber hygiene are quite alarming. The most common consequences are identity theft, data breaches, financial losses, malware, and ransomware attacks.
Certain password mistakes put your information at risk. The first is that you are using predictable, too-simple passwords. Sure, you might want simple-to-remember passwords, but this shouldn’t come at the cost of your own security. Easy-to-remember passwords are among the weakest; among them, we can mention ‘password’ (you surely have used it at least once) or ‘123456’ (the same goes here). This is one of the most powerful examples of weak passwords. On the other hand, a strong password will have a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters, as well as some symbols and numbers. These passwords are less likely to let cybercriminals breach your account.
Other practices that indicate poor password hygiene include reusing passwords across multiple accounts, failing to update passwords, and storing passwords on paper. All these mistakes show that you need a password manager in your life.
A password manager can generate strong passwords and securely store them. Additionally, some password managers will also alert you in case of dark web monitoring, and you will receive alerts in case your personal information is leaked. This tool will offer you much better peace of mind, especially if you know you are not adopting the best security measures in your life, and don’t want to change your behavior.
You are Experiencing Password Fatigue
Nowadays, you need passwords for all your accounts, and the number can be quite large, depending on the services you use. However, the more passwords you need to remember, the more chances you will have to experience password fatigue. Password fatigue leads to mental exhaustion because you need to remember many passwords, which, in the end, makes you want to reuse them or store them in ways that compromise your security.
Now, when creating passwords, many accounts require strong passwords, which often come with many requirements. Remembering them all can simply make you frustrated and exhausted. If you are dealing with this, it is a simpler idea to consider a password manager, which stores all your passwords in a single place to help you better manage this burden.
You lose time by manually typing out passwords
You might work in a corporation where you have numerous tasks. Or you have a busy life, and you are dealing with two jobs, or are a parent of a young child. In all these scenarios, you need to look for solutions to minimize the time you lose and to take advantage of every small area where you are losing time. Even though typing passwords might not seem to make you lose time, just think about how many times you write passwords in a day, and multiply it by 365. You will be amazed by the result and how much time you lose just by typing passwords.
However, password managers remove this impediment and automatically fill in login credentials faster, without manual work. Doesn’t it sound better and easier?
You are dealing daily with the invalid/incorrect passwords notice
Admit it: how many of us have changed our passwords over and over again because we have forgotten them and received an incorrect or invalid password notice? Surely, each individual on earth has received this notice, but if it is occurring quite frequently, this means that you have a problem. If you are changing your passwords over and over again, it will actually increase the risk of forgetting them. Then, you are losing time by thinking about what the passwords actually were, and if you don’t guess it from the first time, your account can actually get blocked for a certain amount of time.
This is surely something you no longer want to deal with, which is why it’s much better to use a password manager. You won’t ever see that annoying invalid password notice ever again.
You save passwords in the browser
Yes, saving passwords in the browser can save you time, but what would you do if your device got stolen? In that case, the person who stole your account could have a high chance of accessing your accounts, since passwords are stored in the browser.
The bottom line
A password manager can be a great tool, helping you create strong passwords, store them safely, and keep online dangers at bay. If you are going with any of the scenarios mentioned above, you should do yourself a favor and consider a password manager.
