Security Reminder ~ time to cycle your passwords :)

[Floris]

log4j and other issues from 2021 have us all running in circles, haha. But what you can do is keep current on your apps and resources, programs and services. And of course: reset those passwords.

New year! If you go to facebook later, just go ahead and review your account security settings, questions, turn 2fa on if it isn't yet, and reset your password.

Using your email tomorrow, no biggie, go to the account manager and review the account, security questions, settings, turn 2fa on if it isn't yet and reset your pass ..

If anything from 2021 or earlier leaks out, you know you've changed your most used stuff.

And throughout the year you can slowly update your entries in your password manager.

Yes, use a password manager, please. If you can remember it, a computer can brute force it before you change it again. Stop being fucking lazy people.

Alright, and if you change something it's easy to remember if you did because password managers also track when you last edited or changed something. But you can for convenience also change the title of your account entry in the manager to (2022) .. And then in a few years you can easily think : this still says 2022, i haven't changed in in a few years, time to do that now.

It's a few extra minutes, and sure, you get inconvenience: But what's worse, a minute of your time each day throughout the year, or all your data public later and nothing you can do about it? Exactly.

Best of luck staying safe! Because people are aholes and they don't care about your feelings when they act malicious.

 

[Floris]

It's January!

Go check your notebooks and post-its, and collect at least your unorganized passwords. Maybe note it down and print it out so you can also read it in a few years from now. Or get a password manager (sigh, do it!) and properly store and sync it between devices.

And then the next time you go to facebook make sure your trusted peeps and family and friends who know you better than you think can't get into your private facebook msgs by changing the pass and logging out other sessions. Review the security questions and "LIE" already .. don't use truths. And make those answers basically as complicated as your pass should be.

There have been 200 million additional records in data breaches, and now with billions in the databases it also means they can put enough id-theft data together to give you a hard time.

Make sure your bank, PayPal, (restore) email account(s) and things that matter to you are at least not passwords from 2015 or something like that.

 

[Floris]

Update:

1Password is at version 8 now, and has improved WatchTower features. It's nice to see that I can sometimes figure out 2fa on sites, or change weak passwords, or update them because they're compromised or outdated.

So this is a reminder to check your password manager and to feel shame - deep shame - if you don't use one yet.