World Password Day

[MarkBC]

Today, being the first Thursday in May, is World Password Day!

Do you know where your passwords are and where they've been...?
I'm celebrating this Day by changing (and upgrading, as needed) the passwords on my most important accounts. You should consider doing similar if it's been too long.

 

[Lighthawk]

Thanks Mark
This is an excellent reminder.

After there was a massive breach in February I got an email from an unknown person who said they had hacked me.
They quoted one of my older passwords that I had still used for unimportant accounts, and claimed they had installed some key tracking software on my computer and demanded several grand in bitcoin.

I never responded, but went about changing all my critical accounts, and adding two-factor verification for many.
I never heard back from said hacker, but continue to be vigilant. I still get a couple of annoying phone calls a day to book a trip to Cancun.

I do like the multi-factor logins where they text a code to your phone.

 

[fuzzymarindave]

I wrote down hints to over a dozen of my passwords and then took a picture of that piece of paper; and have that picture on my phone. I refer to the picture when needed and the hints are enough to remind me. Does that seem somewhat safe?

A long time ago I worked at a place that required employees to frequently change their passwords. About one-half of the employees had post-it notes on the front of their computers with the passwords written down.

 

[MarkBC]

My password strategy for years has been to use a password manager that holds and encrypts all of my passwords.
I use KeePass. Using a password manager to remember my passwords means they can be long and crazy-random, so hard to crack by "brute force". I have the pw manager secured with a 24-digit random strong password. I remember such a long random password by remembering three 8-digit passwords then joining them together. Maybe seems weird, but works for me!
KeePass passwords are not stored on any "cloud" server, only local to me, so I have control of them.

I, too, have had a very-old "favorite" password show up in a hacker's gloat...but, like Lighthawk, I don't use that for anything current or important any more, and ignoring the hacker's threat had no consequences.