[Mohawksin]

Good humor. My gripe is that I'm told my logon/username OR password is incorrect. There is no clue as to which one or both.

[dewilson58]

Originally Posted by Mohawksin

Good humor. My gripe is that I'm told my logon/username OR password is incorrect. There is no clue as to which one or both.

start with username........they will send to your email.
then reset password.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally Posted by Mohawksin

Good humor. My gripe is that I'm told my logon/username OR password is incorrect. There is no clue as to which one or both.

That is a good thing. If it told you which was wrong, it would also be telling the hacker which is wrong, significantly reducing the problem for the hacker, since it will know which is right and can focus on the other.

A good password manager will automatically fill in your user name and password on most (90%) of the logins you do, and on the others, it will show you what your password is. They are safer, inexpensive, and make life easier.

[JMintzer]

You should probably change your password... Worth the watch...

You Should Probably Change Your Password! | Michael McIntyre Netflix Special - YouTube

[jimkerr]

I use a password manager called LastPass. It’s awesome. It works on Android, iOS and has plugins/extensions for your browser.

I often use the generate password option. It’s a really handy app.

[Pinball wizard]

Originally Posted by J1ceasar

Better tip use caps and small letters . Use a non word . Use a password manager . Use Google add a number sequence to a silly word you know like the last 4 digits of an old phone you remember
Add special characters like a dash or asterisk. In between
Umbrella_3030
My_old_dogs_name_1700
Hot_wheel_1951
2001*fav+Movie

Or use the letters from a ryme . Mary Mary, quite contrary becomes MMqc. . get it?

Many of us probably had a word that we used the first 2 letters as the first part of their phone number. So if you phone number was NI(ghtengale) 1 -2345, a good password would be; Nightengale#1-2345.

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by GrumpyOldMan

That is a good thing. If it told you which was wrong, it would also be telling the hacker which is wrong, significantly reducing the problem for the hacker, since it will know which is right and can focus on the other.

A good password manager will automatically fill in your user name and password on most (90%) of the logins you do, and on the others, it will show you what your password is. They are safer, inexpensive, and make life easier.

Can you recommend a good password manager for a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user?

[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by CFrance

Can you recommend a good password manager for a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user?

Pretty sure Google Chrome has one...

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by CFrance

Can you recommend a good password manager for a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user?

I just list all passwords in a Word document that requires another password to open. Then, send it as an email attachment to yourself and store it in a separate email folder. So, I can always access it from any online device. But, my financial passwords are stored in my head. I have never used a password app, but my concern would be that I would become too dependent on it and forget my passwords.

[CFrance]

Originally Posted by JMintzer

Pretty sure Google Chrome has one...

Thanks, but I don't use Chrome.

[butlerism]

Holy dating yourself.

[oldtimes]

Originally Posted by CFrance

Can you recommend a good password manager for a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user?

LastPass is one of the most popular ones.

[Tunesmith]

Originally Posted by oldtimes

LastPass is one of the most popular ones.

I've been using RoboForm for my passwords. At first, I just used the free version, but it didn't automatically sync passwords between all my devices. So I bought the more advanced version and that has been working great for syncing up any new or changed passwords with all my other devices. Go to roboform dot com, price for 1 year is about $24. Well worth it to remember 20-character randomly-generated passwords for you!
I just checked how long it would take to break a 20-character password that RoboForm generated. I used the "Use a Passphrase" link that was posted on page 1. The results for this password (BZfaUHBr.SJYGikf8393) was:
Approximate Crack Time: 31,167,128,343,915,984 centuries. Good enough for me.

[CoachKandSportsguy]

Enable two step authentication for all major accounts, financial and cell phone

I have had friends have their cell phone go off when peeps trying to break in.

[Windguy]

To help me remember passwords, I use lines from songs and use the first letter of each word, throw in special characters, numbers, and random caps. For instance, using a line from Yesterday (Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away), I might get: y-Amtss4a. That’s not long enough, but it serves as an example.

I used to work in a Dept. of Energy national lab. They had a project to test the security of all the labs. They sent infected CDs to random people at the labs and some people actually played the programs on them. This allowed them to get into the lab’s network. From there, my understanding is that they cracked passwords by encrypting all possible combinations of valid characters up to a certain length and created a table that they could search for people’s passwords. The more characters used, the longer it takes and the more storage it takes. It takes about 70x the effort/storage to crack passwords for every character more. Because I had a reputation as a power user, they targeted me and cracked my 8-character password. They were hoping I would have programs on my computer they could user to break into more stuff.

One day I saw my mouse pointer move without my assistance. I immediately disconnected my network cable and got a message saying the connection to a computer was broken. I later discovered it to be in Illinois. I called my support tech and our IS department went into action. Not knowing it was a test, I felt very guilty and wondered what I had done to get infected. I tried to clean up my computer and spent two weeks at it until they let me in on the secret. Then, they took my computer and destroyed the hard drive. I had to buy a new computer.

I later found out that I was the only one in all the national labs to catch them. I was just lucky to see them accidentally bump my mouse when I was using my computer. The fact that so many people put a random CD they got in the mail and ran the program on it did not sit well with DOE. After that, lab started testing us on a regular basis. About one in five people failed the tests.

I asked the people who cracked my computer how long of a password I should use. They said they could crack a 14-character password. I figured they were lying, so I changed mine to 16 characters. As this was over a decade ago, I imagine bad people can crack even bigger passwords with modern computers.

The moral of this story is to use long, random passwords. I highly recommend a password manager. I use Keeper and like it very much. It runs on all my computers and mobile devices and shares my passwords amongst them. I also strongly recommend you use two-factor authentication for your most important accounts.