User Names. Passwords. Password Security. In today’s Information Age, these terms are associated with everyday life whether it is professional or personal. Everything is connected to the Internet these days. As such, everything needs a user name and password.
In reality, you should have a different password for each site. Why? Because all it takes is one mischievous or unethical person to learn your password and they can try to get access to all of your different services from financial to your entertainment on Netflix. It is already an uphill battle for companies to keep hackers out of their databases that contain private data and credit card info. You do not want to make it easier for them to take advantage of you.
But trying to remember all of the different passwords is too difficult! That is the number one complaint. So, you know what many of those who make that statement, but recognize the importance of different passwords do? They write them down in a notebook and put the notebook by the computer or in their desk drawer. This is more secure than having one password for everything because it is protected from hacking and digital theft. But, it is still susceptible to in person theft. All someone has to do is snap a picture with their phone and you will not be the wiser until fraudulent charges begin to happen.
I am sure you are thinking, “Okay. So what do I do?” I am glad you asked! I have three words for you: Password Management Program. This is a program where you put all of your user names, passwords, links, etc into. They often have a password generator built in so you do not even have to think of one. Then, when you sit down to use the computer and need your user names and passwords, you only need this one program.
“But, isn’t that just a digital version of the paper notebook you wrote about above?” Not exactly. Any Password Management Program will require that you have a master password in order to access the information inside. This needs to be a very strong password that would be EXTREMELY hard to hack but easy for you to remember. I recommend using a sentence. It is long, has upper case, lower case, punctuation and you can even throw a number in there. It makes for a secure password. An example would be something like “There are 50 states in the USA and I live in 1!”
For you techno-minded people, this is a password with a strength of 170 bits. Anything over 128 bit in strength is nearly impossible to break using a brute force attack.
A good Password Management Program will hold all of your information in an encrypted database that is protected by a master password, as described above. It also will commonly have features like a random password generator, resistance to attacks like key logging, clip board logging and other ways that hackers try to use for spying and retrieving info. If you use a good Password Management Program and a strong Master Password, there is really no way for anyone to get your user names and passwords. They would need to hack the database of each website you interact with to gain that information or they would need to trick you (phone, email, in person) to give up the password. Short of that, you are good to go.
I have used a Password Management Program for many, many years. I have been using it almost since its inception. The program is called KeePass. You can read about its history and features here and you can download it here. I would ONLY download it from the link I just provided. I have seen copy cat sites 
saying they are offering KeePass, but they are frauds. It is and extremely strong program with all of the features I listed above and more. To top it all off, it is 100% completely free!
Okay. Now that you have read this, there is no excuse for you to go on with an ill equipped password management process. You now know that you should not use Fido, Buttons, Password, Love or many other common passwords for every website. If you do not do your part, you make it much harder for the website owners to do their part and you make it super easy for unscrupulous people and hackers to take advantage of you. Grab your copy of KeePass and protect your data now!