I’d like to share a tip with those of you who think that their only choice for the many sites they log into is to have the same password on all of them.

I’m someone who has managed thousands of email accounts for users, and I personally have to have all my hundreds of passwords on spreadsheets there are so many-not just for email accounts, but for web sites, servers, routers, etc.

My tip is simple. To remember your password, make the passwords such that they contain 2 parts:

1. The name of the site.
2. A word that is used on all sites.

Example:

Here, I use the string “Fr0g” as the common string that ties all the sites together so that I can easily guess the password if I can’t remember it.

google mail: gmailFr0g
yahoo mail: yahooFr0g
amazon: amazonFr0g
[…]

You might want to change your password occasionally, or even frequently. How can this method work for you? If you or your site/server requires frequent changes of your password, here is a great tip to remember it. Structure your password as above, but add a 2 digit number that represents the month that password was entered.

Example:

google mail: gmailFr0g10
yahoo mail: yahooFr0g10
amazon: amazonFr0g10
[…]

Where “10” represents October.

The nice thing about this approach is that most secure sites actually require that you include a number, or even at least one letter capitalized, in your password. This method allows this more secure requirement while still making your passwords easy enough to remember off the top of your head.

Most importantly, a user should NEVER use the same password for all accounts-or even two. Each site should be unique, as you never know who will get your information and use it against you. There are often reports of people hacking a person’s password, changing it, then ransoming it back to the user for money. If the same password was always used, you’d be asking for trouble. And the last reason to use a unique password on each site is that it is less likely that you will forget all your passwords than it is that you will forget one. If you lose/forget that one, single password you have for all accounts, you’re out!

And after all, isn’t this the reason someone would use the same password for multiple accounts?

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