How Often Should You Change Your Password(s)

How Do you Remember All Those Passwords?

There is really only one answer outside of buying into a third-party site such as Password Manager or Password Safe.

As easy as it for me to tell you that a password should be changed every three to four months, the reality of you changing it is another story. It is a lot of work to go into accounts and change passwords, most of the work is going to be coming up with the new password, especially as time goes on and we sign up for more and more networks and member login sites.

You should also ask yourself what the safety level or security sensitivity of the site you’re using is. Financial matters would definitely be a priority for changing passwords more frequently.

The most important question to ask yourself is, what will happen to my life if someone was to hack, steal or break into that account? If it makes you feel faint thinking about it… change that password every four months…

Most people will not change their passwords and worse than that is, if they do they tend to pick easier and easier passwords because we don’t take the time to choose safe longer more secure passwords… In fact we ignore the password sensor that tells us how secure the password is we’re choosing. We even get mad if the site makes up pick upper or lower case and number keys.

Bonus Tip

Every workshop I teach I tend to spend time helping people who have been locked out of Facebook or Twitter because the student cannot remember which  e-mail address they used or what password they choose.

I highly recommend that every password you have is written securely in a book, just call it your “Safe Book” and put it somewhere easy for you to remember.

It doesn’t matter if you’re securing an e-mail address or a bank account, passwords are very important and should be taken seriously. For me I have created my own little system for choosing passwords and every year I throw it out the window and come up with something new and exciting…so I can remember the theme (password) because most times I’m traveling for work and my password book is at home.

Let me know if you have any security questions or tips to add to this short blog.

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Cheers!

My name is Heather Clifford and I live in beautiful Nanaimo BC. I travel throughout this gorgeous country teaching hands on social media, I am a consultant, speaker and social media trainer dedicated to helping you bridge the distance between technology and marketing through social media.