The one password I used for everything (and why I stopped)
A tech columnist explains the dangers of using a single password across multiple online accounts and recommends using password managers and two-factor authentication. The piece emphasizes that email accounts are the most critical security point to protect.
Why it matters
Cybersecurity hygiene is essential for protecting personal data from automated hacking attempts that exploit reused credentials.
What The Tech? with Your Mate Matt<p><p><p><p>Let me own up to something first. For years I used one password for just about everything. Email, Facebook, banking, the lot. It was a good password too. Capital letter and a number and everything. Most of us have done the same, because who can remember forty different logins?<p><p>Here's why I stopped, and why it's worth five minutes of your time.<p><p>Every so often a big website gets hacked. Not you, not anything you did, just some online shop or forum you signed up to a decade ago. The email addresses and passwords in there end up on a list, and that list gets sold to the highest bidder. Then software goes down the list trying those same details everywhere else: email, Facebook, the banks, Xero, MYOB. It's completely automated.
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