Are you a parent or an adult who wants to keep your online information secure? In this blog post, we’ll discuss one of the most important reasons you should save your passwords securely. By the end, you’ll understand saving your passwords properly can benefit you in the long run. Let’s dive in and discover the key reasons to store your passwords safely!

Why you should store your passwords in an organized way

Many of us know we should store our passwords in a more intentional and secure way, but we haven’t really bothered. I mean, let’s face it, most of us would rather spend our time watching our favourite show, or reading a book… or even catching up on the laundry! But guess what? Nowadays, pretty much everything has a password, behind which lies the information needed for so many areas of life. So, if the idea of completing this activity doesn’t fill you with bliss, never mind… it’s just gotta be done.

Why? Because at some point, you’re going to need someone to manage your affairs for you. Period.

Most articles talk about the importance of saving your passwords correctly for the purposes of password management and cyber security. Incredibly important and increasingly so, and there is a lot of information out there to inform you.

But my focus is on everyday family life. I’m thinking what we’ll need when it’s time to step in and support an elderly parent or parent figure, or a family member experiencing challenges. And what if we, ourselves, need support for a little while?

Why would I need someone to manage things for me?

Life is complicated and things will come our way that we hadn’t wished for, but they’ll come anyway. Things like:

• Illness, serious or less so. Who hasn’t had a bad flu or other virus comme la COVID (it’s sounds nicer when you say it in French, n’est-ce pas?) for a week or so, where you felt as if you were unsure you would ever make it out of bed again? Thankfully, you did get over it and slowly managed to crawl back into your regular life and routine. But in the meantime, did you miss paying a bill? Wouldn’t it have been nice to whisper through parched lips to Your Person that the bill needed paying and they would have known precisely where to go to easily find the bill information and the password? And then you could put your head back down on your sweat-drenched pillow and fall back into a fevered sleep, safe in the knowledge that your credit would reamin intact even though you were a total mess.

• Some level of incapacitation due to an accident or health emergency. A car accident resulting in hospitalization, heart attack, stroke… these things happen each and every day, my friends. Meanwhile, the business end of life has to be managed: if it’s not, things will become even more stressful and complicated for the caregiver and this is the last thing we want. And, if your partner doesn’t normally handle these responsibilities, they’re going to be at a total loss during a period of stress, intensity and exhaustion from trying to keep the rest of life and family going. Wouldn’t it help if they knew exactly where to find the passwords?

• Death… obviously. (Let’s not talk about the resulting grief – that’s not what we’re exploring here). The administration will need to be managed: various accounts – including financial – will need to be closed; information provided to insurance companies, banks… Needed interactions will be easier with lists of the account information and passwords in hand.

It could also be for far less traumatic reasons.

• Do you like to travel? Well, what if you’re travelling and there’s an issue with your property or your animal and it needs to be managed while you’re at a distance, but the needed password is on a sticky note underneath your keyboard ( a definite security no-no). Or maybe it’s written in the margins of one of your many notebooks strewn about the house, after you changed it the last time you tried to access your account and couldn’t remember the password?? Argh!! Now what?!!!

• Or, you might simply need someone to help you manage your affairs temporarily. What if you are the Head of Operations for your family and you are in a really intense period of your life (think grad school thesis or dissertation, just had a baby, managing a family crisis…). Managing the ever-present Life Admin may be the last thing you have energy for. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that the person you trust most could step in and take care of things for awhile?

Now, I understand from so many sources that we are expected to keep our passwords to ourselves, never to be shared for fear of breach of security. Agreed, entirely. Don’t go throwing your passwords around. You might be shocked and amazed by what people are capable of. Even people you know.

But allow me to highlight some other scenarios for your consideration. I want to stress that this requires, at a minimum, a relationship in which there is no abuse of any kind (be it physical, financial, emotional, spiritual…). Trusting, committed, mutual engagement is what you’re going for here.

For example:

I offer these as scenarios in which you could trust someone or someone could trust you. This is for you to decide.

What is a good way to store passwords? Options for your consideration

So where would you store them? There are different schools of thought.

Use a Password Manger

A password manager is a valuable tool used to store and manage passwords for your various accounts. The efficacy of this tool particularly comes into play when you have complex passwords for your various accounts, which is what we are expected to do to thwart cyber criminals. The more complex the password, the stronger it is… but the harder it is to memorize. Hence the password manager. The Government of Canada recommends its use.

Write your passwords in a book

What about writing them down and storing them somewhere safe? Passwords written in a little dedicated notebook, tucked away somewhere in your residence? Sounds pretty straightforward. However, like most things on the interwebs, opinions vary. There are folks who will tell you that a password manager is the only way to go, while others will tell you not to worry about writing down passwords as long as you don’t store them in plain sight. As in, don’t carry the notebook around with you, use it in the coffee shop and then wonder where it is when you go to look for it later. Also, don’t leave it on your coffee table in a book labelled “Book of Passwords”. If you’re anything like me, your bag is probably already full anyway, so leaving the book of passwords at home, in a safe place, seems reasonable. If the significant threat is at the level of cyber security and not at the level of your break-and-enter criminal, perhaps a book of passwords might be an acceptable risk? This is for you to decide.

Memorize your passwords

Or you could go old school and just try to remember them all. Do you remember how many phone numbers you used to have stored in your head? And routes to peoples houses, before you started relying on GPS? And now I can’t even remember the number for my work cell. Why bother? I have it stored in my personal phone. So sad.

But fear not. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Ways to create and remember secure passwords

Now here’s something incredibly useful. You could dedicate a bit of time to learning how to create secure passwords that you can remember. This may not help you if you are experiencing severe levels of incapacitation; however, it will most certainly keep your daily life flowing and your information more secure while you are healthy and well.

Two ways to create and remember secure passwords are the Correct Horse Battery Staple Method and the Bruce Schneier Method . These methods will have you developing secure passwords that you can remember in no time!

The Correct Horse Battery Staple Method requires that you make a pass phrase. In this case, a pass phrase is a number of unrelated, common words  – 4 is ideal – that mean something to you and are easy to remember. By putting these random words together, it makes it more difficult for the algorithm to defeat you.

For example (Note – don’t use this example now that it’s out here circulating in the ether. Seriously. The link provided will generate random words for you if you are struggling to come up with something on your own):

Smurfs Cars Broccoli Purses  could become “SmurfscarsBroccolipurSes”. Easy for you, hard for the algorithm.

Just practice it a few times over the course of a day and you’ll have it memorized.  Just like you did when your mother sat you down and had you memorize your social security number so that you didn’t risk losing this precious card by carrying it around in your wallet.  Or was that just at my house?

The Bruce Schneier Method is also incredibly useful and straightforward. This method would have you convert a phrase and make it an acronymn. That’s it.

For example (same warning as above – don’t use this example):

“I eat chocolate when my feelings are hurt” could become “IeCh0cwmf!rh” See how I substitued a zero for the “o” in “chocolate”? And the exclamation point after “f” for “feelings” (because… my feelings!). These little tweaks make it even more secure.

So amazing!

Maybe someday I’ll be making my own videos but, until then, I’ve included one below for your viewing pleasure. It’s made by Clearbridge, a Canadian company that delivers IT strategy, security and support. I have no affiliation with these folks and found them as I was researching for information to share here. This video is helpful. If you don’t have time to watch the entire thing, I recommend watching 10:10 – 19:35, at a minimum.  This section covers the do’s of passwords; and, how to create secure easy to remember passwords, which is where they go into detail regarding the Correct Horse Battery Staple Method and the Bruce Schneier Method.  If you’re able, the entire video gives you things to think about and consider. It’s worth your time.

Summary

You are an autonomous being with your own life situation, and what you do is up to you. Use a password manager, write them down in a book and store it out of sight, memorize the passwords … I’m not here to direct or to judge, my friends. My goal is simply to encourage you to give this some thought and come to your own determination before you’re in a challenging situation. Because at some point, such a situation will come your way, be it temporary or permanent. But at a minimum, do keep the following in mind.

Limit the people you share passwords with to only those who absolutely need the contact information. Make sure that you trust this person to keep the password secure as well. You don’t want to take security measures only to have someone else make your passwords accessible and hackable.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/how-share-password/

As always, the thing to do is be sure you get started. Review some relevant and credible information, perform your own analysis, make a decision, and get going. You can adjust as you go… so go! Don’t be like Past Me, keeping passwords in several places under a “specially designed coded system” in an attempt to fool the would-be burglars but only managing to confuse myself. Umm… what?

And because we know that one day we will die (facts), consider providing your passwords to the executor of your will and your power of attorney (because you’ve completed your will at this point or you’re working on it because you know you should, yes? If you’re using a password manager, you’ll only need to provide them with the one password that unlocks all of the other passwords. So very efficient.

And if you’re well and in control, and someone does use a password that you’ve shared and you realize that you were mistaken in your decision to share it, change it and check your account for fradulent activity. Then get better friends.

Make a plan, take action, and be well.

xogailyb

P.S. If you’ve made it all the way to the end of this article, you have my heartfelt thanks! And while you’re here, I would appreciate it if you would sign in directly below to get my ebook! It will give you a better idea of what I will be exploring on the blog as we go along. Thanks in advance for your support!