• Patch Lady – 31 days of paranoia – day 2

    Posted on October 2, 2018 at 14:41 CDT by • Comment in the Forums

    Patch lady here – with day 2 of 31 days of paranoia.

    Today I’d like to remind you of how much we’ve become depended on passwords and yet how fragile they are.  As the FBI pointed out three years ago…. “an online password is all that separates the average person from financial or reputational harm”.  And, in my opinion, that risk is only going to get worse, not better.

    But I’d like to flip this around, and in the honor of the Halloween season get a bit more morbid about this topic.  I’d like to point out another risk of online passwords  –  how to manage their retirement or migration to another person or entity.  So many times I see people posting on various forums asking how they can break into something because their loved one has passed away and not left documentation of how to get into various venues.  There are tools to remove passwords in QuickBooks, tools to reset passwords in computers, there was even a tool to even email out your passwords to a designated person when you pass away (I’m not kidding, but it looks like it died and is no longer in business).  Have you thought about all the places you log into on a regular basis and have you (ready for this?) written them down along with the necessary credentials to enter them?  Just like a financial will, a digital plan for passing along the key information to allow your family members to reach out after you are gone it just a wise thing to do.

    Similarly for those of you in businesses, do you have a list of all the admin-y web sites that impact your business and have a plan for passing them along to someone else?  Too often – especially in small businesses – I see these accounts tied to a specific person that when they leave there is a scramble to find all the password logins once they leave.  Often one has to rely on reset processes to get back into things.

    So?  If heaven forbid you got hit by a bus?  Do you know if your family would be able to stop all the automatic payments for anything you’ve signed up for?

     

    Other ,
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