This guide will tell you how to do both safely and securely. You have two choices when it comes to securing your accounts and apps: Use a reputable password manager app, or manage your passwords yourself. Turns out, you can now be lazy, cranky and stay ahead of account hijackers, thieves, and creeps just by using a solid, reputable password manager. Worse, many people will make the simplest, most hacker-friendly passwords around, like '123456.' This house of cards is destined to come down in the worst ways, like through hacked video call accounts, identity theft, drained bank accounts, or hijacked email and social media profiles. And old (bad) habits die hard, like using the same password for everything (or never changing them). This all feels overwhelming, which is why so many people give up on password security before they even start. Nowadays, remembering every single password is impossible.īy subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget's Terms and Privacy Policy. On top of all that, it seems like every time we buy a lightbulb we have to make a new account of some kind. Then there’s always some security disaster making us have to reset our passwords again. Making them, remembering them and having to create a new one when they expire when all you want to do is log in. Password management is basically a nightmare.

Of course, we seldom find out about these breaches until it’s too late, which is why us security nerds are always annoying you by saying “don’t reuse passwords” until you mute or report us for pestering you. It’s almost always the result of re-using a password that you’ve used somewhere else, which was then exposed in a breach or hack attack on a different company.

The most common way account takeovers happen isn’t some kind of hacker-magic mystery. Not only do you lose your connections and access to communication and community, but recovering anything with most companies is a nightmare. The last thing anyone needs right now is to have their Zoom, Twitter, Skype, Nest, or any vital account hijacked and stolen. Update : We’ve updated our guide with details about the changes coming to the free version of LastPass in March 2021.

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