Tech Tip: Make This Password Different From Everything Else


You know you’re guilty of it: using the same password for everything. Believe me, I understand how annoying it is to try and remember all those passwords. And if you’re using the same password for sites that don’t share sensitive information — like a login to a news feed you like to read — then it’s generally okay.

However, the one password you want to keep unique is your email password. If an e-commerce site you’ve registered at or bought from gets hacked, and you’ve used the same password you usually use for everything to register at the site, you can pretty much bet hackers are going to gain access to your in-box.

They’ll have your email and your password to the e-commerce site and will use that to hack in. From there, they’ll have fertile ground for getting all your data and other passwords.

Alan Edwards, CISM, is chief information officer at Computerware, Inc., in Vienna, Virginia.

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