Tech Tip: Why Is It So Important to Have Unique Passwords?
By • September 23, 2019 0 530
A complex password is a necessity in the current age of cyberthreats, data breaches and other security incidents. Those of us who live in reality also know how hard it is to keep the seemingly hundreds of passwords straight, secure and different.
Wait, what’s that? All of your passwords aren’t different?
Why is having different passwords so important? When an online retailer or a website gets hacked, oftentimes all you hear about in the news is how many credit cards were lost or what the financial damage was. You rarely hear about the user accounts that were compromised.
However, if you have an account on a compromised website, the username and password you used very possibly could be published and available to anybody who wants to look at them on the internet. A clever crook knows that you probably used the same password on the compromised website as you do on your eBay, Amazon and other online accounts — which are likely to be tied to a bank account.
Sure enough, by using the same password on those accounts that you used to set up an account on the compromised website to reserve hotel rooms, buy clothes or whatever else, you’ve now handed your credentials over to hackers.
It is possible — and surprisingly easy — to keep the password madness under control. There are tricks to having unique but memorable passwords. The bottom line: no matter how much of a pain it is, it is very important to have a different password for each online account.
Alan Edwards, CISM, is chief information officer at Computerware, Inc., in Vienna, Virginia.
