We've all been there, that feeling of frustration when you've lost your password to a website. Yes you can usually go through some password recovery mechanism but that can be a pain. And if you auto log-in from multiple devices, now you have to remember your password and enter it into each device. Use the same password everywhere? Not a good idea as hackers compromising 1 site can lead to them being able to log into all of your accounts. Not to mention different sites have different password requirements, some don't allow you to use the same password more than once, and some expire. It can all be so confusing.
But what if I told you there is a simple technique to avoid these issues? A technique which suits almost any password requirement, is relatively secure, but is significantly changed for each site. Let me show you how!
Step 1: Pick a pattern based on the name of the website in the URL. It might be every other letter in the name, the name spelled backwards, the first letters after the first vowel, etc. Just make sure you can remember your pattern! So for example 1 lets say I'm choosing a password for coolracers.com and my pattern is 5 letters, every other letter with the middle letter of the password capitalized. You would come up with "coRcr".
If the website URL won't support your pattern, simply wrap around or reverse or include the full URL...whichever rule you choose stick with it. For instance CNN.com would be "cnNcn" using the wrap around rule. This is example 2.
Step 2: Pick a block of special characters. Let's say for the sake of our example my pattern is ":-)" This block does not change.
Step 3: Now pick a phrase you can easily remember with a number in it. This phrase does not change. Let's say it's your first pet's name and your lucky number. We will use "Spot15" for our example.
Step 4: Combine your password into 1.
Our example 1 password is: coRcr:-)Spot15
Our example 2 password is: cnNcn:-)Spot15
You can now create a different password for each site but only have to remember the 3 building blocks of your password. You might want to create 1 pattern for anything with private information in it (such as your bank's website) and another for social media and a final pattern for forums and blogs. Or skip the pattern method for private information websites altogether and only use it for less sensitive accounts.
In a future post we'll talk about how to handle the dreaded password expiration!
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