Managing Passwords

Are you one of "those people" who has one password for everything you do?  Do you use the most common passwords out there - "password or 12345678"?  If you are, you are an easy target for malicious activity.  Passwords are your first line of defense.  I don't want you to go crazy with passwords, but you do need to follow a few guidelines.

• Use passwords that people can't easily figure out.  Don't use names of people or towns.
• Use Strong passwords, which are are typically measured as 
• At least 8 characters long
• Combination of letters (both upper and lower case), numbers, and characters (@#$%^&, etc)

Personally, I have a lot of passwords.  Over the years, I've managed those passwords a couple of ways.

Password File.  I've used Microsoft Excel to keep a password file with all of my passwords.  The trick to this is keeping that file protected.  For one, don't call it password file.  Call it something a bad person wouldn't figure is something important.  Second, I password protect the file.  This means the file is encrypted and can only be viewed if you enter the password.  With this method, I only have to remember one password - the one that opens my password file.

Here's how you would create a password protected Excel file (these directions apply to Excel 2013):

• After creating the file, you'll click on the File tab (upper left hand corner)
• Click on "Protect Workbook" button
• Select "Encrypt with Password".  Remember the password, because once you select this, you'll have to enter that password any time you open the file.

If you want to be mean to a bad person, create a file called password in Excel.  Follow the proceeding steps and give it a really long ugly password that would be hard to crack.  The only information you want to put in the file is "Ha Ha, you just wasted a bunch of time cracking a file that has no purpose other than to waste your time".

Password Managers.  These are programs that allow you to enter one password to a program / website that will then automatically keep track of your passwords for you.  You create a master password, which needs to be in strong format (described above).  There are several options for password managers.  Below is a link to a review done by PCMag, which describes a few of the password managers

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407168,00.asp

I have a personal preference here.  Since I use McAfee's LiveSafe product, it comes with a password manager as well.  With LiveSafe, it provides virus protection for all my personal devices including PC, MAC, and Android.  It has the password manager feature for those operating systems plus Apple iOS.  Additionally, there is a secure storage for important documents, like passports.  It's not intended to be a typical file storage system like Dropbox.  It is intended to store secure documents like a passport in case you were to lose it.

Can I just use the save password in my browser?  Unfortunately, if someone gains access to your computer, they will have access to your passwords.  An article in USA Today points out how you can view every password that is saved in your browser.  Don't use the browser password save feature.

USA Today Article