Letting your Internet browser remember your passwords can be dangerous

Noobies are notoriously awful with password administration. Most of them use the same user name and password for every secure web site. Even worse, noobies love to use easy to crack passwords like the word password, their pet’s name or some variance of their children’s names.

And the software companies aren’t helping either. Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox have options to remember passwords for you. Most noobies are thrilled with this feature when they see the popup window appear on their screen asking them if they want their browser to remember their password. A simple click of the mouse on the Yes button and that’s one less password for them to remember.

But letting your Internet browser remember your passwords can be equally as dangerous as it is convenient. If someone were to gain access to your computer, you just gave them the master key to every secure web site you frequent. The risk of this is even higher if you use a laptop especially if you like to use that laptop in public places or other locations that make it an easy target for thieves.

Firefox at least allows you to assign a master password so you only have to remember one password while still maintaining multiple passwords across multiple web sites. With a master password in place you are, at a minimum, making it more difficult for a thief to gain access to all of your other passwords.

What can you do?

So what’s a noobie to do to protect himself better? The following list, although not comprehensive, makes for a good start:

• Make sure your computer requires a user name and password when you first turn on the computer. This adds one more layer of protection against casual thieves.
• Do not allow your Internet browser to remember your passwords. If you can’t resist this convenience, use a browser such as Firefox that allows you to set a master password.
• Use a third party software application such as Keepass that encrypts all of your password data and safeguards them with a master password and optional key file. Look for more information on KeePass in an upcoming Noobie article.

Lastly, keep in mind, that even with all of the above security measures in place, you will never be 100% safe. I love to use the analogy of why people lock their doors on their home at night. They do it to keep out 99% of the thieves, not the 1% of professionals that would never be hindered by a simple door lock.