Twitter urged all 336 million of its members to change their passwords in early May because users existing passwords were all saved in an plain text on an internal log. This wasn’t a response to a known breach, but a proactive security measure.
For Sean Sullivan, F-Secure Security Advisor, this announcement was an excellent reminder that now is a good time to take a look at all your passwords.
“It’s very important to have a unique password that you know is not compromised with every service you use,” Sean said, in a video for F-Secure’s Connected Live YouTube channel.
If you aren’t sure that you can say that today, Sean says now is “probably a good time to do a spring cleaning and really take at your critical accounts and do they have unique, strong passwords associated with them,”
He suggests breaking the process up so you don’t overwhelm yourself.
“You don’t have to do it all at once, like one account per day, at time.”
He also suggests that you make this process even more secure by using a password manager or safe. This tool, which Sean has been using for about a decade, allows you to store all your passwords along with any other relevant information about those passwords, including creative answers to security questions you may have come up with.
Many password managers — like F-Secure KEY, which you can use for free on one device — also can generate strong, unique passwords for you. Here’s a great explanation on how anyone can get started with this tool.
“Before you know it, you’ll be living a lifestyle where you don’t have to worry about these sorts of breaches in the future.”
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