Why you need a password manager to protect your data

[reader]

From National Public Radio Here and Now podcast

There were more than 3,000 data breaches in the U.S. alone last year, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center.

Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd talks with Joseph Cox, investigative journalist at 404 Media, about how easy it is to hack a password these days.

Listen to podcast at

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/04/11/password-manager-data

[BjornAgain]

Would second the use of a Password Manager, especially as we use more and more online services. That way you can use passwords of greater lengths, as well complicating the password by using combinations characters, symbols, numbers and mixing of uppercase and lowercase. 

Also the use of more than one e-mail account, so keep your Banking / Insurance / Government activity from your online purchasing, as well forum's such as this. Also Geographic e-mails accounts, ie my Thailand activities are separate from my UK and Australian activities.

Also don't use facial unlock, as anyone who grabs your phone can unlock it by pointing it at you before doing a runner. Same for a patten unlock, as it's not difficult to workout someone's code from a brief visual check of their slime-trail!

As the podcast said, you'll only need to remember 1 password, plus whatever you use to unlock your phone, PC or tablet.

If you only use a 6 character password made up of uppercase, lowercase letters, this is a 52 character string of letters (26 + 26), or 1 in 19,770,609,664 chance of cracking your password. Sounds like a big number, however would take a PC (Intel i5) a few hours to workout your password. More modern PC's are almost immediate.