Take a moment to consider how many passwords you have online. Sure, there are the primary three or four that you use every day, but how many sites have you created accounts on? Online shopping, accounts associated with work, apps required for package delivery, and more are all things that require passwords.  All of those areas are vulnerable to digital attacks. The best way to maintain security is to change your passwords. That said, how often should you change your password?  We’re going to take a look at keeping your data safe today, exploring the idea of password maintenance. Let’s get started.  Why Do You Need to Change Your Passwords? You might be thinking, “I have a strong password on all of my accounts, so there shouldn’t be any need to change them.”  Why change it? While a strong password is essential for security maintenance, it’s important to take a look at how security breaches happen. In a lot of cases, one of the accounts you have will get hacked.  That data leak leads criminals to your other accounts, and those accounts are vulnerable if you’re using the same passwords or similar passwords. This is especially true if you tend to use common numbers or bits of information in your passwords.  For example, using the first four letters of your last name and the digits of your birthday is a pretty easy thing to decode. Further, it’s not usually the case that someone is sitting behind a desk, tinkering away at your potential password.  Data breaches come in large packages of information, and hackers usually access the areas where a big number of passwords exist for a particular website. In that case, your data gets served up on a platter.  It’s unfortunate that we can’t do much to avoid those situations. We can opt to only use the most reliable and secure websites, but even those get hacked sometimes.  How Often Should You Change Your Password? Data breaches don’t often occur on the sites you use. It’s improbable that you’ll experience numerous hacks in a short period of time unless you have an exceptional number of accounts on vulnerable sites.  That said, any of the sites you use are vulnerable to attack at any time. It’s hard to know when one site has been breached, leaving your other accounts vulnerable.  In light of that risk, it’s smart to change your primary passwords every few months. The more often you change the password, the lower your risk of getting hacked. It’s unnecessary to change your password every week or every month, but getting around to it around once per season is a good way to stay ahead of the curve.  Fortunately, most websites will let you know if there’s been some kind of data breach. You’ll get an email or an alert letting you know that your data could have been compromised.  Another benefit is that services that manage numerous passwords tend to let you know when breaches occur and some let you know when shared passwords have been compromised. For example, you might get an alert that a password you use for numerous sites has been discovered on one of those sites.  Services like Google Drive or iCloud that link up with your phone should alert you if your saved passwords are vulnerable. There are some instances when you should always change your password, though.  Let’s take a look at those circumstances.  1. You’ve Been Hacked When one of your devices or one of your accounts gets hacked, it’s time to do a full sweep of your passwords. Every new piece of information that a hacker gets might lead them to your other passwords, financial information, and personal information.  If there’s any sign that a data breach occurred, change any passwords that protect private information.  2. You Use Vulnerable Networks A lot of people utilize public WiFi networks on a daily basis. Coffee shops, university networks, and more are all great ways to get work done on the fly.  That said, those networks are more vulnerable because they’re public. If you’re someone who uses a lot of public networks, you should change your passwords more often than you would otherwise.  If this is the case for you, it’s also a good idea to make sure that you have additional security. The aforementioned services that manage your passwords are a good start. You could also invest in better security for your devices.  3. You Do a Lot of Online Shopping The holidays expose just how many times we need to log financial information into different websites. The same is true if you’re someone who orders a lot of food, pays for numerous subscriptions, or manages their businesses online.  It adds up really fast. It’s not uncommon for someone to have thirty or forty-odd accounts floating around at any given time. Those are vulnerabilities that can be managed.  Make sure that you don’t use the same or similar passwords on these sites. That’s rule number one. Use a password manager or a service that helps you keep track of various passwords.  Ensure that they’re all distinct from one another. Another thing you can do is delete those accounts right after you use them. Unless you use the same site for deliveries every day, you don’t need to keep those accounts active. Order deliveries as a “guest” or take five extra minutes to create an account each time. A full data breach is not worth the few rewards points and discounts that you might get from an active Dominos account.  Hackers get access to your bank accounts, your municipal bills, and more. If you share your devices with other individuals, those people are put at risk as well. Cleaning up that mess takes a lot longer than it takes to delete an arbitrary account after you order something.  Want to Learn More About Security Maintenance? So, how often should you change your password? The answer depends on who you are, but you can

4.88 billion people from around the world use the internet on a regular basis. This might be for work, online banking, shopping, or streaming entertainment services. Every single one of these activities involves logging into a private account and for this, you’ll need a password!  Unfortunately, having a big online presence comes at a risk. Online accounts have become prime targets for hackers looking to steal data and financial information. In fact, in the USA alone there are around 80,000 cyberattacks per day. While hacking software plays a big role in these attacks so do weak passwords and bad password use. This includes reusing the same password on multiple accounts. So why is password reuse such an issue? Read on to find out exactly why password reuse could be putting your online security at unnecessary risk. Password Reuse Could Compromise Multiple Accounts  Setting a great password can help to prevent hackers from getting into your online account. In particular, this can slow down software that helps to crack password combinations.  However, no password is completely foolproof. Given time, hacking software will eventually be able to crack the combination on most standard passwords. Once cyber attackers have cracked one of your passwords they are sure to try it on your other accounts. This will quickly become an issue if you have reused your password. Suddenly you’ll find multiple accounts compromised in one quick move! Widespread Consequences for Phishing Attacks  Repeating passwords is also poor practice when it comes to protecting yourself against phishing attacks. These attacks often come in the form of fraudulent emails or other communications. They are usually disguised as coming from a reputable source to trick people into sharing sensitive information. The most successful phishing attacks work by collecting information about you in advance. This helps them to more accurately deceive you. If you continually reuse your passwords then clever online phishers could use this information to get more security information about you. They only need to know a few digits of a weak password to email saying that “password: a**j**2” (for example) has been compromised.  This can help them to make their emails look even more legitimate while in reality they are collecting more data to weaken your online security. Serious Issues for Corporate Data If you run a business or work for one then your password doesn’t just protect your personal data. It also allows access to large numbers of customer data. Because of this, a data breach can have serious consequences. These sort of breaches are much easier if you reuse passwords, especially between colleagues. If an old employee leaves their role then the person replacing them should always receive a brand new password. Corporate data losses can cost companies thousands of dollars to recover from and seriously damage their reputation. If you run a smaller business then your company may not recover from a significant data breach.  Varying your passwords throughout the company will help to protect your business. However, there are some other things you can do to strengthen your password security. Let’s take a look at some of these. Tips for Improving Your Password Security There are plenty of things you can do to strengthen your passwords easily. While using a memorable place or person’s name can help you recall your password, this also makes it easier for hackers to figure it out. Instead, try to go a random word or phrase. Then break this up using numbers or punctuation.  A lot of hacking software looking for words that you can find in a dictionary first so whole words and phrases are easier to crack. In comparison, nonsense phrases and collections of randoms letters and numbers take much longer. This is also why long passwords tend to be stronger than short ones. As well as creating different passwords for each account, you should change them regularly where possible. If someone has previously hacked your account, this will prevent them from doing it again in the future.  Get Help Remembering Your Passwords Changing your passwords and varying them comes with one obvious challenge: trying to remember which password works for each of your accounts! The last thing you want is to keep forgetting your passwords and getting locked out. Fortunately, password management sites offer a better solution than simply keeping a note of these in your diary or on your phone. After all, if you lose this list of passwords then whoever finds it has access to all of your personal information!  Password management sites offer a secure portal that stores all of your passwords in one safe place. They also encrypt the data that you put in so only you and your account security can read your login details. This means that you only need to remember your password to the management app and it will take care of the rest! Management apps connect to Apple and Android devices and offer the option to autofill the passwords that you want. So you can keep all of your account secure without losing track of a single password. Eliminate Risks From Password Reuse Today As you can see, password reuse makes it easier for online hackers and malware users to damage your IT accounts and systems quickly. So using different passwords on each of your accounts will make a big difference to your online security.  That said, keeping track of multiple different passwords can be difficult. Fortunately, password management software makes keeping your accounts secure with different passwords easier than ever before. Find out more about how Log Me Once can help you manage your passwords easily and improve your online security today.

Are you frustrated because you can’t remember all of your passwords? It can be challenging to get things done on your digital devices when you constantly find yourself stuck and looking for another password.  Thankfully there are several things you can do that will help you to know how to remember passwords. If you want to find out what to do, read on and we’ll tell you what you need to know.  Make It Rhyme  No matter who you are, you probably know several songs and rhymes that get stuck in your head every time you start saying them. Maybe it’s the lyrics to your favorite pop song, or maybe it’s a rhyme that you remember from childhood. No matter what it is, did you know that you can make it into a password? You do this by writing down the first letter of each syllable while choosing capital letters for stress syllables and by not changing the punctuation. For example, if you were to use the well-known lyrics from the Britney Spears song “Baby One More Time,” which start with the words “My loneliness is killing me, I must confess I still believe,” the password you’d create would be mLiKMIMCISB.   This is a great method for creating a password that you’ll remember but will not be easy to hack.  Create a Sheet That Gives You Hints Take a piece of paper and for each password that you have, write down a hint for it. In doing this, make sure that it’s something that only you will know the answer to. For example, if you had a crush on a certain boy or girl while you were a child that you never told anybody about which reminds you of one of your passwords, include the name of this person as your hint.  In creating this sheet, also keep in mind that it’s important to store it in an area where nobody else can find it and where you won’t lose it.  Disguise Your Words With Symbols Experts always recommend that you include all four kinds of characters in your password: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. This is because the more variety of characters you have in your password, the harder it is to hack. You can also make your password hard to hack by making it very long.  In order to do this, simply choose a very well-known word and change as many possible letters within this word into numbers that closely represent them.  Use a Smart Passphrase to Know How to Remember Passwords A passphrase is a string of related words that won’t make sense to anybody but you. Maybe you had a passphrase to your treehouse when you were a child. Consider using this passphrase as your password while also adding a few extra characters in order to disguise it even more.  If there are no easy passphrases that come to your mind, don’t worry. There are various online password generators that are easy for you to use. Simply do a web search to find one that’s right for you.  Select Four or Five Random Words This is one of the most popular password memory tools. All you need to do is choose several random words that come to your mind. To make these words into your password, all you need to do is use the entire words for your password while also choosing to replace several letters with special characters.  Invest in Password Management Software There is no way to underestimate the importance of having password management software. These programs can cut down the time and energy that you need to spend searching for all of your passwords. But many people don’t realize that not all password management software is created equally. Some programs are more difficult to use than others, and some are more secure than others.  The good news about this is that not only will LogMeOnce maintain the security of your passwords, but it is also easy to use. It is also very effective at helping you know how to remember passwords.  Use a Base From Which to Build All of Your Passwords This is a great idea for remembering passwords because it is easy to do and does not require that you make many different passwords. All you need to do is have a single base word or phrase. It’s a strategy that you can work with for your entire lifetime.   If you have a single base password, you can tweak this password for every site or program that you use it for. For example, if your base was Re%wk5le3fi, you could simply add -Fac38o0ok to the end of the password that you use on Facebook. For each different program or website that you use it for, you simply add a different ending. Remove the Vowels From a Well-Known Word  Once you have a phrase to use for your password that’s easy for you to remember, change some of the letters to numbers or symbols. Then simply remove all of the vowels. After this, be sure to add several numbers or symbols at the end to make sure that it’s even more secure.  Remembering Your Passwords Is Not So Easy After All It’s actually not that difficult to know how to remember passwords while at the same time not compromising their security.  Remember to choose a password that’s based on a phrase that you’ll remember. Then all you have to do is disguise this phase by changing certain letters with numbers or symbols. It’s also very helpful to invest in software such as LogMeOnce which can help you to remember your passwords.  If you have any questions about how to create passwords that you won’t easily forget, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We are here to help you with anything that you might need. 

Do you know nearly 281.5 million people have been affected by a sort of data breach in 2021 alone? That scary, right? Data breach leads to financial loss and reputational damage to individuals and business. Besides, if you are a business owner, breach of customer data will have legal consequences. Using passwords is your best line of defense against a data breach. A strong password will offer crucial protection against financial fraud and identity theft. However, if you can’t remember passwords to all your various accounts, you might be in trouble. If you have many online accounts, you must protect them using different and unique passwords. Besides, you have to keep updating your passwords regularly to prevent your accounts from being compromised. But the more passwords you have, the higher the chances of forgetting some of them. The last thing you want is to forget the password to your bank account or other important online accounts. So, do you know how to remember passwords to all of your online accounts? Worry no more. Here is the surefire best way to remember passwords. Create a Tip Sheet to Remember Passwords If you have more than ten passwords, it would be impossible to memorize all of them. For this reason, you can consider creating a tip sheet. In the tip sheet, you only write clues involving your password that can help you jog your memory around if you forget any password. If you write your actual passwords down, they might end up falling on a wandering eye. Therefore, the password clue should only be something that only you can relate to. For example, if your password is your pet’s name, the clue to write down can be the name ‘pet.’ Try Using Shortcuts When creating your passwords, you have to ensure your passwords are easy to remember and hard for other people to guess. By using shortcuts such as abbreviations, you can create easy-to-remember passwords. Using the first and the last letter of the website and combining them with letters would be an excellent way to create a short and secure password. For example, you can include the letters F and B in your password if you are accessing Facebook. You can also use the name of the color of the website’s logo. Create Your Own Code Replacing numbers with letters and misspelling some words is a good strategy for creating strong passwords. You can opt to replace the third and fourth numbers of your passwords with letters. For example, you can have your password looking like this- 34BC345. If you opt to use letters instead of numbers, ensure to have some of the letters replaced with numbers. Remove Vowels If replacing letters with numbers is not your thing, you can remove all the vowels in your password. If your password is “billboard,” your password shall be “bllbr” by removing the vowels. But to make your password secure, ensure to include numbers and special characters. Create a Phrase From a Memorable sentence Creating a phrase from a favorite sentence is a creative way of coming up with a unique password that is easy to remember. From the sentence, you can use abbreviations that mean something to you. For example: “I dream of becoming a billionaire.” This would become something like IDrBe66Bi. Adding the number to the phrase will make the password more unique and secure. Use a Base Password If having different passwords for every account is challenging, you can use a base password. Tweaking base passwords will give you unique passwords for all your accounts To make the password memorable, you can add the name or the first letter of the website. If your base password is “orng@bmd,” you can make it unique to your Instagram account by adding Insta3@gram to form orng@bmdinsta3@gram. Build a Password From a Favorite Song If you have a favorite song, it’s pretty hard to forget it. By creating a unique password from such a song, you are assured it will stick to your memory. Choose your base password from a phrase or a word from a song you love. Ensure to pick words or phrases that have a meaning to you. You can choose a term that triggers your emotion or refers to an experience you have been through. But if reading books is your thing, choose a phrase from your favorite book. Ensure to choose a phrase from the first page or any other page that is easy to remember. Use a Secure Browser that Can Remember Them For You If you don’t want the struggle of creating and saving passwords on your own, use browsers that generates and saves the passwords for you. Using such browsers, you can create many unique passwords as you want. However, don’t save your passwords on such browsers if you use a shared computer. Use of Password Manager Although having all passwords in one place is a bad idea, some passwords managers allow you to keep passwords safely in one location. Password managers also synchronize your passwords across different devices. Even if you have registered passwords on your phones, you can still access them from your laptop if you have a password vault. But when choosing password managers, pay attention to the features of the password manager. The best password manager should have a secured password vault and be end-to-end encrypted. You Now Know the Best Way to Remember Your Passwords  To protect all your online accounts, you must have unique and strong passwords. But to remember all your passwords, you must take the proper measures. Read the above tips and discover the surefire best way to remember passwords. Are you looking for a reliable password manager? At LogMeOnce, we got you covered. We provide a secure single sign-on and mature identity management with a user-friendly dashboard. This makes it easy for you to access all your accounts safely and easily. Call us today for all your password management needs.

In 2020, approximately 47 percent of Americans experienced some form of identity theft. If you don’t know what makes a good password then you’re likely to fall victim to identity theft as well.  In this article, we tell you exactly what makes a unique password and how to create a password that offers the best protection. Continue reading to keep your online accounts as secure as possible.  1. Make it Difficult to Guess When it comes to learning what makes a good password, you have to consider what people might be able to guess about you. You never want to create a password that is something simple or that someone who knows very little about you could guess. Once you’ve ruled out that kind of information, think about information people who know you might be able to guess. Even if you can trust them, hackers may be able to obtain detailed information like this. 2. Complexity Is Essential While it’s difficult to remember even a simple password, simplicity is often a risk to security. Knowing how to create a password that’s complex can help keep your identity and personal information secure.  Consider creating a password that’s a minimum of 10 characters, but longer is better. The longer the password is the more possible combinations of letters, numbers, and punctuation. Longer passwords would take a hacker far longer to crack than they’re willing to commit. 3. Avoid Common Words or Phrases You may be wondering, ‘what makes a password unique?’ If a word or phrase in your password can be found in the dictionary, you’ve selected something that’s too common to be an effective security measure. Instead of these types of words, we recommend choosing words or phrases that aren’t in the dictionary. Examples include slang and abbreviations. If you have to use common words, try to break them up with symbols. 4. Use Typos and Misspellings A misspelled word may not be good for grammar but it’s what makes a good password. The use of typos and misspellings is one of our top unique password tips. It’s difficult for hackers to determine which correctly spelled words you used. You should make it even harder to guess by spelling words incorrectly.  5. Add Special Characters  What goes in a password that requires special characters? Many users opt for common characters such as a period, an exclamation mark, an ampersand, or a hashtag. These characters are expected by hackers and can threaten your security. We recommend using special characters for your passwords that are uncommon. Security experts recommend using different types of brackets or characters not found on a traditional keyboard as top security measures.  Common Password Mistakes to Avoid If you want to know how to create a password that’s effective, you need to understand the most common mistakes online users make when creating them.  Even if you apply the above unique password tips, you might still be putting yourself at risk if you make any of these common mistakes repeatedly. The key to how to create a password that’s effective is being unexpected.  Repeating Passwords The idea of trying to remember a unique password for every single online account you have may seem daunting. However, recycling the same password over and over can be a serious security risk.  The same can be said about using variations of the same password. If someone were able to guess the main part of your password, figuring out the remainder won’t be very difficult for a skilled hacker.  You should never feel like you have a ‘core’ to your password that you add a new special character to or some capital letters. Instead, when your password expires, you should choose something new and unfamiliar to you for the best password. Passwords with Personal Information Personal information is easy to use but not fit for passwords. Any information that could be considered public knowledge is too convenient for a hacker to find. This includes information such as family names, pet names, and addresses. You may think you can get away with using this information if you use the names of several of your pets or children in different orders. However, even in alternating sequences, the number of possible combinations is far from limitless. Passwords with Sequences The best password doesn’t use sequences or cliché passwords. For example, using the word ‘password,’ or any variation of the word is more common than you might expect and an effective way to get hacked.  Using sequences such as “1234 to “abcd” is also a common password mistake. Avoid these easy-to-guess password elements if you want to maximize account security. Consider no sequential numbers and letters instead. Using Little to No Variety One of the common mistakes people make when deciding what goes in a password for their account is forgetting to include variety. While some websites require passwords to include uppercase letters, numbers, and characters, some don’t use enough variation. For example, some website users may choose to capitalize the first letter of their password but fail to include a capital anywhere else. Special characters or punctuation may be used at the end, but not in the middle. Get creative for the best password. Knowing What Makes a Good Password Knowing the elements of what makes a good password is the best way to secure your personal and professional accounts against security threats. Avoid falling into the most common mistakes and use the above guide to create the best password possible. For extra security, sign-up for our free security platform to protect all of your passwords and cloud storage files. 

In 2020, 81% of online security breaches were due to weak passwords. A weak password can get you compromised even with your most sensitive information. These warning signs will tell you if your passwords need improvement. You’ll never have to worry about getting hacked again when you use strong, unique passwords for all of your accounts and devices!  Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about common password mistakes. 1. You Have the Same Password for Multiple Sites When you have one password to unlock all of your accounts, it’s only a matter of time until someone cracks your password and gains access to everything on your Google Drive account.  You should always use different passwords for every single website or service that requires an account on your part. That way, if one of your passwords gets compromised, the rest of your accounts are still safe. Why Is This Bad? If someone gains access to your email account, they can easily reset the passwords for all of your other accounts by using the “forgot password” function. 2. Your Password Is Easily Guessed Your password should be something that is both easy for you to remember and difficult for others to guess. The purpose of the password is to act as a barrier between you and potential hackers.  If people who know you can guess your password, it’s not doing its job. For example, a password like “password” or “1234” is not a good idea. This would be easy for someone to guess if they tried.  Why Is This Bad? If your password is easily guessed, it puts your account at risk of getting hacked. A hacker can try different combinations of words until they find the right one. For instance, “password” is a common password. With some luck, a hacker can guess it on the first try. Some websites make this easier by restricting the number of unsuccessful login attempts you have before they ban your IP address entirely. This makes it harder for hackers to crack your password, but if someone guesses your password correctly, that’s still all it takes to get into your account. 3. Your Password Is Short and Simple A password that is short and simple can be easily guessed by hackers. For example, “password” is only 4 letters long and has no special characters. Adding special characters to your password makes it more difficult for hackers to guess. Why Is This Bad? Short passwords make it very easy for hackers to crack your password. A longer password with a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters as well as numbers and symbols will make it more difficult for hackers to guess your password. 4. Your Password Is an Incomplete Word or Phrase When you use an incomplete word or phrase as your password, you’re allowing hackers an easy way to crack your password. For example, a password like “Period” is too short and simple and can get cracked very easily. Why Is This Bad? Using incomplete words or phrases makes it easy for hackers to guess your password. A longer password with a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters as well as numbers and symbols will make it more difficult for hackers to guess your password. 5. You Use Your Username or First Name As Your Password This is one of the biggest signs of a weak password. You should never use your username or first name as your password because it is very easy for others to figure out what your password is by looking at it. Why Is This Bad? Using your name as your password is the same as posting it for everyone to see. It makes it very easy for hackers to crack your password without doing any extra work. A longer password with a combination of lowercase and uppercase letters as well as numbers and symbols will make it more difficult for hackers to guess your password. How To Pick A Strong Password A strong password consists of a combination of lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and symbols. For example, “password” is way too easy to guess by hackers. Instead of using your name as your password, use the first letter of each word in your full name or favorite quote. For instance, “hannah2smth!” is better than “hannahsm!” because it’s harder for hackers to guess. Another good idea is to use the first letter of every word in a sentence and mash them together. For example: “I love my cat” would equal “ilmca!”. Don’t make your password too long, though; no one wants to have to remember a sentence of 20 characters! When To Change A Password You should change your passwords every few months to help keep your accounts safe. If you get news of a security breach at another site, you will need to change all of your account information again (and it is good practice to change all of your passwords). If somebody has gotten access to one of your online accounts before and has created a bot to try to log in with your username and password, you will need to change your password immediately. Here are the most common scenarios when you should change your password: Your account gets compromised A breach occurs at a company that you have an account with You receive a suspicious email or text asking for your login information Keeping Your Information Secure You can keep your accounts safe by using a different password on every single website. This way, if one of your passwords gets exposed, the rest of your information is still safe. You can also use a password manager to keep all of your passwords in one place. This is a good option if you have trouble remembering multiple passwords. A password manager will create strong passwords for you and store them in a secure place. If you are using the same password for multiple accounts, you should change your passwords immediately. Start Avoiding Weak Passwords Today It is