Password Fatigue

I hear a lot of complaining from people that they have to remember too many passwords. With computers becoming more integrated into our every day lives we are having to deal with passwords more. The problem is that out of a fear for security, people are getting too crazy with their passwords.

Most people are good about following the rule of not using the same password for everything. If your password is compromised then all of your accounts and password protected assets are vulnerable. But it's common to have so many passwords that you can never remember the rarely used ones. Life Hacker's Gina Tripani has the answer by having a base password modified by rules for each application.

Say your base password is "asdf." (See how easy those keys are to type?). Then your password for Yahoo would be ASDFYHAO, and your password for eBay would be ASDFBYEA.

Another tool that I have used in the past when passwords such as alarm codes have been given to me is a password keeper program. You can download these on most smart phones for free. You enter all your passwords in but the list is protected by one master password. The vulnerability of course is if the one password is breached then your entire list is in the open.


On Twitter today you can find one of the trending topics is worst passwords. There's some creative and funny ones like "KimsWedding", too short and not strong enough. Some that you really want to stay away from though include "admin," "password," and your name. Although Twitter user @aYokka has found that if you use a boyfriend's name you have to figure out a new password when the relationship's over.


Have any password stories? Let us know in the comments and don't forget to follow me on Twitter!


@TheCellularGuy