It might not be something you ask yourself often, but how much time do you spend each year updating your passwords for each of your devices or online accounts? Or getting locked out of those accounts and having to create new passwords (which you’ll inevitably forget and get locked out of again)? If your answer to this question is “not much,” then you either live like a digital nomad, or you have some very basic passwords that you share between multiple accounts.
While we are all drowning in passwords, the IT industry is already leaping towards a passwordless future. These days Apple, Google, and Microsoft all either use facial recognition, or have their own 2FA (two factor authentication) mechanisms that will prompt you to unlock an additional device. Tech giants know that most consumers are sitting on an insecure card when it comes to their passwords. But for now, passwords are an inevitable part of living in the digital world. All we can do is navigate as safely and securely as possible.
The best thing you can do right now to protect all your accounts is to create bespoke, complex strings of unsolicited codes, or passphrases (complete sentences used as passwords) that are unique to each account. The only problem with this is, it’s impossible to remember all those different passwords at the drop of a hat when you’re trying to access accounts.
One of the worst things you can do is write down all your passwords in a notebook.
Credit: Judith Peter
The future we’ve all been waiting for, though, has no passwords, no frustrating security loops and account resets. And while we’re not there yet, there is a way to reduce your daily password total Nowadays we have encrypted password managers. These basically act as a digital vault to protect all your different passwords across all your devices, all under a single master password. This means you can have extremely long, complex passwords for all your accounts (some password managers will even generate them for you) and not have to remember them.
Password managers, especially those with browser extensions and connected smartphone apps, can save you a lot of time by storing all your passwords when you submit them and automatically filling in password fields every time you access sites. There are many piles of them on the market, but they can vary dramatically in price and feature set. BitDefender Password Manager A popular alternative, and the strongest known cryptographic algorithm available. It also gives you that autofill option and is multi-platform so it can store and organize all your passwords across devices.
While there are many full-featured password managers available in the market, Bitdefender comes as a password manager Bitdefender Premium Security package, which combines it with all of Bitdefender’s main security products such as antivirus and a VPN. If you’re already paying for a separate security suite, and dread another subscription for a password manager, this is a great way to include your password protection in that cost. Bitdefender Premium Security Although it is currently worth living on its own PCMag’s Editors’ Choice For security suites, so not only will you move into a password-free lifestyle, you’ll have some of the best cybersecurity available.
