Why never reusing the same passwords is REALLY important

There are many tips and tricks to keep your online accounts safe. So many that it is often hard to keep on top of all the best practises out there.

And another one to throw into the mix (well okay it’s actually been in the mix for some time now) is about reusing the same passwords. Or rather, how you should not reuse the same passwords.

This particular piece of advice has always been around, usually given at some point after the typical advice about “strong” passwords, using a variety of letters, capitals, numbers and symbols. And of course not using any words you’d find in the dictionary.

However, with a type of scam called credential stuffing becoming more and more popular, and with continued cases of data breaches that result in people’s email and password login credentials being leaked online, avoiding the same passwords has never been so important.

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We often use the same email account (or username) for various online accounts, and if we also happen to use the same password as well, we are creating duplicate login credentials between different online accounts. This is really not a good idea, and this is why…

As we stated above about continued cases of data breaches still happening (along with the many other different ways that crooks can steal our passwords,) this has led to a rise in credential stuffing. This is a type of attack where a crook will use a person’s login credentials that they have obtained and use those same credentials to try and login to a variety of other websites.

Because many people still reuse the same password, a set of login credentials that have been compromised from one account may very well work with another account. Crooks employ automated software to attempt to login to other online accounts. And all it takes for them to be successful is for the compromised password to be reused with only one other account.

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As we said, this type of attack has become more and more popular, so avoiding the same passwords has really never been so important.

There are other things you can do to protect yourself in case this does happen, such as enabling two factor authentication for your accounts. So if you “accidentally” reuse the same password, a credential stuffing attack would still not be able to access your account without an additional code that is in your possession.

But it isn’t the case of doing one or the other. Internet safety at its best when you do as many different things as you can the right way, so never reuse passwords, and always enable two factor authentication.

We get that remembering tons of passwords can be a hassle. And this is why password managers are a massive help. We recommend LastPass as our go-to password manager. Click here for a 30 day free trial.

Some advantages to good password managers include –
– Automatically generates strong passwords
– You only need to remember a single master password
– Can autofill password fields in the same way a browser can
– Passwords will always be unique
– Easy to change your passwords
– Can support multiple devices so you can sync login information on more than one device.