73% of People Use Bank Password Everywhere

Study finds that 73% of people use their banking password everywhere else on the web. But not the people reading my blog, right? Y’all are to smart for that.

The problem with using the same password on multiple sites is your password could be stolen from a site using weak security and then used to get into a higher security site.

Now, having a new password for every site probably isn’t feasible for people, so you have to make a decision on which sites need separate, strong passwords.

Alas, this doesn't actually work for computer security

You should have a seperate, strong password for every site that:

• Records a lot of personal information. (Facebook)
• You have financial dealings with. (Banking, Paypal)
• People could easily get personal information or passwords from (Webmail, Ebay)

You may be able to recycle passwords among sites you just fool around on (message boards, game sites, blogs, etc.) While it’s annoying to have someone usurp your identity on a message board, it’s a lot less damaging than them transferring a few thousand dollars out of your bank account.

So what’s a strong password, anyway? A strong password:

• Contains letter AND numbers (and upper and lower case if the password can be case sensitive).
• Does not contain a dictionary word (and if it does, it’s split with numbers or another word.)
• Isn’t pulled from your personal information (no pet’s/kid’s names, phone numbers, etc.)
• Is as long as the site allows. (8 is good, 12 is better)

Truth be told, a dedicated hacker could use a brute force method to guess just about any password, but the idea here is to look like a less attractive target and prevent amateurs from nabbing your info. In the same way an angry German Shepherd barking in the window may make a thief decide to go rob another house, having a good password helps discourage identity thieves from choosing you as a victim.

Have you ever had someone steal your password?

Truth be told, when I was young and dumb, I used the same (fairly strong) password for eBay and PayPal. This was a big mistake because someone did manage to get a hold of the password and then guessed that they could use it on the other site as well. The lesson here is don’t have matching passwords on sites that go together.

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