The company I work for requires that we change our passwords every 60 days. There are some 40 different systems, servers, etc., which require a password to gain access. It takes me close to half an hour every time I change my password just to update all the different places I need access. I have to have a spreadsheet to remind myself of all the places I need to change. And I do it, because if I don’t the systems kick me out after those 60 days. They’re fairly careful about their electronic security (physical security is another issue altogether, but I won’t go into that).
I’m sorry to say I’m not nearly so careful with my own security. Most people aren’t. It’s partly because it’s just darn inconvenient to keep changing your password to get into Facebook. I’m more cautious than most, I suspect. I imagine a lot of people set every site to remember them and to remember their password to log them in automatically.
The other reason I find it hard to be more secure is just the sheer number of places for which I need logins. Most sites, in order to track you and gain more information about you and your habits, require some sort of login. I’m not even conscious of just how many places are this way. And, truth be told, it’s probably not that big a deal if you’re not that secure on those sites. But the easiest habit is to use the same login for every site you visit. Should “Jane’s Webcomic Review” get hacked, chances are the hacker would get the same login and password we use for our online banking. Am I right?
If I have 40 different places to change my password at work, I probably have over a hundred online. And I never change them regularly (fortunately my bank requires me to). But I should. And I don’t. It’s easy to do at work because…well, they pay me to. Doing that with my personal accounts requires sacrificing my free time. It would be easier, and less a hassle, if I could just remember to go in and change each password the next time I login. But that’s hard to remember to do, and harder to remember when I last visited that site. Some are easy, of course, since I visit there several times a day. Others, though, I may see once a year.
But I vow this year I will change all my passwords at least once. I should have done it long ago. It’s definitely time.