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| Having trouble remembering your passwords? |
Between your e-mail accounts, bank accounts, password-protected work computer, and the 20 other accounts you've set up on the internet, how can you possibly remember all that information?
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Many people write them down in various places, some more obvious than others. Some put them on sticky notes on their monitors, while others store them on files on their computers. One guy I know even has a complex method of recording passwords in his day planner so that most people wouldn't be able to interpret what he's written.
Of course, the problem with this approach is that if you can read what you've written, most likely someone else can as well. Do you really want to risk handing over all your personal information to whoever is clever enough to figure out where you've written your passwords? |
Other people use the same password for everything, but that's not very secure either. The more accounts you create with the same password, the more exposure you have to people who might be looking over your shoulder when you type it in or might hack into a web site that you've signed up on that has weak security. Once they guess your single password, they have access to everything! Again, not a very good idea.
So whatever else can you do? Narwold Computer Services highly recommends using an encrypted password database. "What's that?" you ask. Well, it's a list of passwords protected by a password. It sounds a little cyclical, but it really makes a lot of sense -- trust us. What you do is to protect all your individual passwords with one super-duper password that no one else is going to be able to get their hands on. This is safer in several different ways:
- You only have to remember one password, so you can afford to make it a little more complicated. Surely anyone can find the real estate in their brain to fit at least one good password... right?
- You aren't entering your master password into every web site and computer you access. In fact, you don't have to use it for anything accept unlocking all your other passwords. This process takes place on your local computer, so you reduce your potential exposure to threats on the internet.
- Some skeptics might ask "but can't someone that knows what their doing hack into your password database and retrieve the information even without your password? The answer is that it is EXTREMELY unlikely. Good password databases use such complicated encryption that it would probably take a very powerful computer years to break.
So how do you get an encrypted password database? Well, you have several different options:
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Download free software off of the internet. There are many several excellent password managers available for free on the internet. We recommend KeePass Password Safe, which we have found to be quite user-friendly and highly secure. |
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Purchase a commercial product. There are number of good products that include extra features that might not be available for free. For example, eWallet is a popular password manager that works not only on your PC, but also on your PDA or phone. |
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Purchase a dedicated USB password manager from Narwold Computer Services.
We offer specialized USB drives that can be plugged into any Windows 2000/XP/Vista computer that are already set up to store your passwords and other little pieces of personal information. This allows you to carry your passwords around with you wherever you go, so they're available whenever you need them. We've also included a feature that allows you to instantly backup your password database onto a PC so that if your USB drive ever gets damaged, you'll be able to restore your information. |
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If you have more information to keep track of than just your passwords, you may want to try a unique piece of software from one of our partners.
Locket allows you to archive all kinds of different information, including…
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Your family’s medical and financial information |
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Lists of the contents of your home (for insurance purposes) |
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Important documents |
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Websites and passwords |
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…and much more! |
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Locket not only allows you to remember this information, but it also makes it easy for you to share the information with family members who might need to retrieve it in case of an emergency. |
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Store all your passwords in one safe place, and have it with you in the convenience of a USB drive!
The Narwold Computer Services USB Password Manager is a password-protected, highly secure database that stores passwords and other personal information.
Now available for just $20!
Click here for more information.
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When you come up with a password for any account that you don't want anyone else to get into, it's important to choose something that's complex enough to deter would-be password crackers. The following tips should help:
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The longer the password, the better. Obviously you don't want to make it so long you can't remember it, but make it short enough that no one else can guess it. |
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Use multiple character sets. If you use only letters, a password cracker has to go through all the possible combinations of the 26 letters of the alphabet. This may seem difficult, but a computer make shorter work of this than you might think. Instead, use both upper-case and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. This makes the number of possible combinations exponentially greater. |
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Try not to use common information that a cracker might guess, such as names or birthdays. |
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