Don’t get hacked! Time to get serious about password safety

Top tips for locking down your online security

(BPT) – Hiding your house key under the doormat is a terrible idea, but we do it anyway because it’s a convenient backup. When it comes to safeguarding passwords, especially in a family setting, people often choose convenience over safety.

As families manage their digital information and online accounts, many end up opting for that less secure key-under-the-doormat solution. People are already sharing passwords, and their methods of sharing are not always the best. Some 41 percent of adults with online accounts admit to sharing passwords with friends and family, according to a survey by Pew Research Center. Yet, 90.8 percent of respondents say they know that having strong passwords helps them better protect their families.

Consider the number of security breaches that continue to make national news:

• In 2016, we learned the Yahoo data breach compromised 1 billion accounts.
• That same month, we learned 167 million email addresses and passwords were stolen from LinkedIn.
• In September 2017, a security breach at Equifax was reported, exposing Social Security numbers and other personal data of 143 million users. That’s nearly half the U.S. population.

Now more than ever, it’s clear how important it is to protect our personal information online. According to a Verizon 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report, 81 percent of data breaches involve weak, reused or stolen credentials. That’s significantly higher than the 63 percent it was in 2016.

“If you were to dig into the reasons behind these repeated, overly simple, shared passwords, it’s actually pretty understandable as to how this happens,” according to LastPass Senior Director of Product, Steve Schult. “The average person has some 200-plus logins. If you were to give each its own strong, unique password, that’s way too many for one person to keep track of and remember, let alone all the other family members that might also use some of those accounts.”

But there’s no need to trade security for the convenience of digital access. With a password manager designed for individual or family use, you can create those strong passwords for all the accounts you and your family use, and store them within a secure vault that’s accessed by a single master password only you know. These digital lockboxes protect your information under multiple layers of security, making it impossible for digital thieves to hack and access.

If you’re debating whether to make the switch to a digital password manager, here are a few ways it can improve your family’s online security and help stop the struggle with passwords.

Create rock-solid passwords:

Most password managers offer a secure password generator that allows you to set and create a long, strong and unique password for every online account. You can create a password up to 100 characters long, including numbers and symbols. Another way to do it is by using the “passphrase” approach, meaning string together words that create a phrase. Be sure to steer clear of birthdays, anniversaries, street names and other specific personal details that can be found through a simple social media search.

Secure more than just passwords:

There’s an endless number of passwords and sensitive information you can store in your password manager, including banking logins, passport and license numbers, shopping accounts, email and social media passwords and more. By storing all of this information in your secure vault, you’ll always have access to the information whenever and wherever you may need it.

Safely share passwords with family members:

One benefit of a password manager that’s designed for family use is that it lets you safely and conveniently store passwords and valuable documents in folders for flexible sharing with others in the family. LastPass Families includes unlimited shared folders, which means you can create multiple folders and store an endless number of passwords and share with those in your family. For example, you could put your banking account password into one folder and share access with your spouse. You could have another folder for your favorite streaming services and securely share access with the whole family. All the while, you can keep your personal accounts private.

Use it as a teaching moment:

Have a talk with your kids about how passwords are the keys to our digital lives, and how good password habits help protect everything from personal details to finances. Show them how to build a good password, and how tools like a password manager can create a safe way to access and share accounts. It’s an important life skill that will help them protect themselves for years to come.

Plan for the digital afterlife:

When there’s a death or serious emergency, it turns out that state and federal laws, along with service agreements, can block your family from getting access to your online accounts. With a password manager that allows emergency access, family members can get into your password vault and have access to whatever they need.

For a list of the best password managers of 2018, visit PCmag.com. For more about LastPass Families, visit LastPass.com.