We’ve got passwords for everything. Sign in, Email, Banking, Shopping; it can get quite overwhelming.
The biggest mistake is to have the same password for everything. If you only have one password this is nice and easy to remember, but you could lose access to everything in the event of an attack. If a scammer found out your email and password then the first thing they would try is to login to PayPal, eBay, Facebook, Amazon and all the other big services; if your passwords are the same then you’ve lost access to all these services.
Don’t feel guilty for keeping a password book, but do be cautious about where you keep it. Almost every customer I visit has a password book made out of an old diary or address book, but a common mistake is keeping it next to the computer or in the top drawer next to your keyboard. If you must keep a password book then keep it far away so it wouldn’t get stolen in a theft, or consumed in a fire. You could also mask your passwords with a crude manual encryption such as writing them backwards, but good physical security is important.
Another common mistake is to substitute common characters, such as O for Zero or A for 4. This does add a level of complexity but it’s easy to guess. Try substituting uncommon characters such as shuffling vowels around or inserting extra numbers midway or using unconventional caPITaliSatiOns.
A common way of remembering passwords but keeping them all different is to use a ‘seed’ word or phrase to start each password, you then add some characters to the start or end of each password depending on the site.
For instance, your seed could be “FordCortina” but let’s make it less guessable by changing the capitalisations and adding some numbers: “foRd3CorTINA”. We might decide to add the first two characters of a site address, so for eBay we would add “eb” to the end making the final password “foRd3CorTINAeb” or for amazon we would add “am” to the end making the final password “foRd3CorTINAam”. Using this seed, if your amazon password were compromised your other passwords remain safe and you only need to remember your one seed phrase.
Make it even less obvious by putting the added characters in the middle of your seed phrase. You could even use a numeric substitution: ebay starts with “e” which is the 5th letter of the alphabet, so put 5 somewhere in your seed to make the final password “foRd3Cor5TINA”.
Our November Safe-Support campaign starts soon so keep an eye out for flyers and adverts in the next few weeks. Our support line is open now with emphasis on phone and remote support to keep everyone COVID-Safe, and free safe home collections to reduce contact.