There’s no denying that 2020 was a challenging year for us all, and even though some good things are already happening, it looks like the quarantine might last a bit longer.
And these trying times revealed a lot of underlying problems, one of them being cybersecurity.
We have written about Internet security challenges at home before, and weak password management was one of those challenges.
In this article, we’d like to focus more on what password management is and what a password manager does.
We’ll provide five reasons why you should take password management seriously, and why using a password manager brings both online safety and comfort at the same time!
1. Protect your online accounts
Cybercrime has been steadily on the rise for quite some time now, and the statistics are grim. Last year ZDNet researched how Covid-19 crisis affected cybercrime, and the correlation was obvious.
Covid-19-related email scams increased by 667%, there’s a 2000% increase in infected computer files with “zoom” name on it, and people are clicking on phishing links more often than before.
This shows that hackers are successfully exploiting this terrible crisis and use fear to commit cybercrime. After all, it’s hard not to click on an email which states that it has essential information regarding your health.
Sadly, lots of these emails are phishing scams, and they might even direct you to fake websites (like your banks’ website) where you will have to log in and manually input your password, which now ends up in cyber criminals hands.
A password manager allows you to autofill passwords, so you don’t have to type them by hand, and it will protect you against these kinds of cyberattacks.
2. Credential stuffing attacks
Credential stuffing is a common type of cybercrime that requires little coding knowledge. That’s why it’s popular among hackers that are looking for an easy cash-grab and maybe aren’t sophisticated enough to carry out a serious cyber attack.
Credential stuffing exploits data-leaks and reused weak passwords.
A hacker obtains a set of leaked password-username combinations, and with the help of automatization software tries the same combination on different services, such as Netflix, Spotify, or Disney+ and alike.
These services have suffered credential stuffing attacks, but this time the fault lies with the user.
Nobody should use the same password for different services more than once. Once again, here’s where a password manager jumps in, which allows you to store as many different passwords as necessary.
Furthermore, credential stuffing attacks are on the rise right now, so it’s best to take action to protect yourself.
3. Have as many passwords as required
One of the problems with password management is that you can remember only several passwords by heart. Furthermore, if you want them to be excellent and secure passwords, they will have to be long and include numbers and symbols.
And that’s even harder to remember. But if you use easy-to-guess passwords like “qwerty” or “passwords321” you become a juicy target, and your accounts are in risk of being stolen.
Password managers store your passwords in an encrypted vault, and they can store any amount of them. So you shoot two birds with one stone:
- You can have a complex password because you don’t have to remember it by heart anymore,
- You can have as many passwords as you like in your secured vault.
This will defend against credential stuffing attacks, and cybersecurity experts widely recommend using this software.
4. Benefit from additional encryption
Password managers not only store your passwords in a secure location; they also apply additional encryption to protect them from prying eyes.
Encryption ensures that your passwords are indecipherable by anyone else but you. And advanced password managers have a zero-knowledge architecture, which means that they can’t access the passwords themselves.
This is a massive boost to your online privacy because passwords can grant access to your social media, banking, and other services. If the only person with access to them is you, your online safety becomes far more robust.
5. Enhanced browsing comfort
Password managers also increase browsing comfort. First of all, they offer password generators, so you don’t have to break your mind by trying to come up with dozens of long passwords.
Furthermore, the autofill feature is an enjoyable addition because it saves time. How many times did you enter a long password and made a mistake?
Re-entering it is quite frustrating, and a suitable password manager will make your browsing experience a more pleasant and safe one!
