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Forgetting your password is a severe lesson in learning to cope with frustration. Whether you want to buy something quickly or need to check an account, it’s hard not to freak out and yell, “I forgot my password!” when it happens to you.
Instead, you have to do what you always do. Click on the link to reset your password, wait for an email to appear in your inbox, click on that link, and then spend too many minutes trying to think up a new password that’s secure, and you’ll remember the next time around.
Human brains are often “unable to remember many different complexes, randomly-generated passwords, and so a secure password manager is necessary,” computer security expert Graham Cluley, co-host of the Smashing Security podcast, tells Yahoo Life. There is a better way, though — namely, password manager software. Password managers can help generate new passwords for you and store them in one spot, so you don’t have to keep track of multiple passwords across several different sites.
Try LastPass Premium, part of Yahoo Plus Secure, risk-free for 30 days. Install LastPass Premium, and the password manager software will create passwords for every account you have — from your credit card accounts to your email, social media, streaming services, or any account that retains your payment information. It will then store the passwords securely across all of your devices. So no more mentally freaking out about forgetting your password — it’s done for you.
LastPass Premium’s password generator creates long, randomized, and secure passwords to help guard against online security threats. It also offers unlimited password storage, so you don’t have to worry about hitting a limit.
Shop it: LastPass Premium, part of Yahoo Plus Secure, risk-free for 30 days, subscriptions.yahoo.com
If you’ve never used a password manager before, it’s understandable that you might have some questions. Here’s what you need to know about them and why they can be so important for protecting you online:
You won’t forget your password again
At its core, a password manager is designed to store your passwords across various websites. Then, when you need to log in somewhere, the password manager will fill in the blanks for you. No need to remember many passwords or feel frustrated because you forgot your password yet again — it’s all there for you.
By the way, it’s still a good idea to at least try to remember the “susceptible” passwords you have, Joseph Steinberg, cybersecurity and emerging technologies advisor, tells Yahoo Life. “Those passwords should be memorized,” he says. ›
It can help generate more secure passwords.
“If you have a weak password, it makes it easier for hackers to gain access to your account and exploit it,” Cluley says. Coming up with a secure password on your own can take a little thought. If you prefer to do it on your own, Steinberg offers up this advice:
• Combine three or more unrelated words and proper nouns, with numbers separating them. His Example: “desktop8jonathan3goats.” “Such a password is far easier to remember than ‘w4x&Py6Q,'” Steinberg says, adding, “In general, the longer the words, the better.”
• Add a special character in between. Some sites require adding special characters (think: @, #, $, %, &, !). Steinberg says you can add your special character between words and numbers, like “desktop!8jonathan!3goats.”
• Use at least one non-English word or proper name. For Example, “louver!8iyengar!3goats.” Steinberg says you want it to be something you’re familiar with, but others wouldn’t guess.
• Couple capital letters together. “To increase password strength even further without making memorization difficult, consider using a couple of capital letters that always appear in a particular location throughout all of your strong passwords,” Steinberg says, adding that the last two letters of the second word can help. Example: “louver!8iyengAR!3goats.”
If that seems like a lot for you to think of on your own, or if you know there’s no way you’ll remember a password like that, a password manager can do it for you.
You only need to remember one password.
For ultimate online security, “you should have a different password for each service. Never reuse passwords,” Cluley says. So, ideally, you’ll have a bunch of different passwords at your disposal — and that’s a lot to keep track of. With a password manager, you need to remember one password for your password manager. That’s a vast improvement from the status quo.
Shop it: LastPass Premium, part of Yahoo Plus Secure, risk-free for 30 days, subscriptions.yahoo.com
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