Last month, I spent several hours going through a rather frustrating process: I changed all my passwords on all my computers and websites. I now do this every three months.
This was prompted mainly from my webserver, which has been hacked twice in the past couple of years. I know it’s important to change passwords occasionally, but I never bothered to until I lost data on hacked websites.
There’s an unexpected benefit to this: I’ll occasionally be reminded to return to a website I haven’t visited in a long time, and my current password won’t work. I’ll try previous passwords until I can get in, then write down this new website. I now have a comprehensive list of sites that require a password, and I’ve closed accounts on a few that I no longer need. So, I’ve eliminated a few repositories of my personal information that had been floating around.
I remember my passwords by having different levels of passwords: I have one password for throwaway accounts that don’t keep any personal or financial information (such as forums and games), another for financial websites, and another for
Moreover, all my passwords use
Is this a pain? A bit. But I feel a lot more secure. I think it’s worth the trouble.