Most people use terrible passwords – like 123456, qwerty, or password (something any 12-year-old could crack in seconds) –and then they reuse these bad passwords on all of their digital accounts.
“Using a weak password, worse yet, reusing on multiple accounts is like leaving a hamburger on the table next to a big hungry dog. Odds are it’s going to get eaten,” said Adam Levin, the host of the What the Hack podcast.
If you use a weak password and you share it across your universe of accounts, you’re upping the likelihood that you’re going to become a victim of some form of identity theft, Levin said.
“Because once somebody has your password, and most people tend to use the same user ID, they’re going to try every-which-way they can to compromise you,” he explained. “They’re going to try to get in every bank account, every credit card account, every social media account that you have.
If you can remember a password, it’s not good. Long and strong passwords are a string or random letters, numbers, and symbols.
A password manager can remember these strong passwords for you. Your browser may have a password manager feature, or you use a dedicated password manager. Anything is better than ABC123 or LetMeIn.
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