Securing a computer is hard. A highly skilled hacker can easily break into to your accounts or computer. But the same can be said of home security. A highly skilled thief can easily bypass a locked door or alarm system.
Most thieves are not highly skilled, and even thieves with greater skill prefer easier targets. So locking doors will discourage many thieves, and a big, barking dog will discourage even more.
The same is true with hackers – most are not highly skilled and even those who are prefer easy targets. If you are a typical consumer without data of great value to criminals, then using a password manager as I describe here can act as the equivalent of a locked door combined with a barking dog, an alarm system, and a sprinkler system – which will keep out all but the most highly skilled and determined hackers.
Unfortunately, the way most people manage their passwords can be easily exploited by automated malware or as part of larger attacks that harvest thousands of passwords. Even more unfortunately, the vast majority of advice about password management is either misguided or too complicated. In this post I explain why I believe using a Password Manager (to assign unique, random 15 character passwords for all accounts, protecting them with a strong master password) strikes the best balance of usability and security for the average Joe.
The title of this post sums up the password management approach that I believe provides the most benefit for the least effort. In the rest of this post, I explain why.
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