Could Your Kids be Careless With Online Passwords?
With companies being slammed over and over from hackers, security on the web is more important than ever. Even still, as most of us step up the security in our online foot print, there are procrastinators who still believe they are immune to such attacks. They believe they are exempt from this situation, because they “don’t visit less than reputable websites,” or feel as though “hackers don’t have anything for them to take.” Trust me we all have something they want…
My wife and I sometimes, have to share certain passwords with our children for things like Netflix or a school login account. With tech being so prevalent in everything we do these days, we often times don’t give it a second thought, when handing over the goods. Over the years, we had multiple conversations with our kids about online security and how important passwords are, as well as, how to make strong passwords. But leave it to my 12 year old to test whether or not her parents are doing a good job with password security.
Last evening, while sitting on the couch with my wife, talking shop, the topic of passwords comes up, when suddenly my 12 year old pops in and says “did you know my password for my IPod will only take 2 years to crack!” I am sure you can imagine my face in this moment, surprise mixed with a proud dad moment, but then fear of how do you know that? lol while my brain is processing my wife pipes up, “what makes you say that?” Our 12 year old reports back “I found a website online that you can type your password into and it will tell you how secure it is, it’s really cool and it tells me that your password (a password my wife and I didn’t know she knew) is really secure and will take 10 years!”
My jaw drops… I am impressed that she takes an interest and that she can appreciate the importance of password protection, but in this moment I am concerned about what website was used and how many passwords of our and all of her friends were imputed. Long story short, she showed us the website and while it looked like it could have been a legitimate and safe website, when it comes to passwords, DO NOT TAKE ANY CHANCES, my wife and I spent the next hour changing every password we could think of 🙂
Based on a recent survey from Statista, young people are more careless with passwords. 34% of people aged 18 to 34 years use the same password for “most online logins,” compared to only 20% of the 35 to 54 demographic, and only 13% for those older than 55. In addition, a whopping 10% of 18- to 34- year-olds use the same password for all their online keys.
It goes without saying that this is bad practice. It can be all too easy to hack into a single, less secure account, but if different passwords are used for separate logins, it becomes much more difficult to access more important files in say, a Gmail account or bank login. Not so if the passwords are identical.
If you need IT help, we’ve got your back 🙂 Please call us to schedule a FREE IT Consult at 937-291-9900. We’ll be happy to give you a free evaluation on your overall network and device security as well as advise you on if you have any risk areas.
