It’s a really bad idea to use a single password for all of the sites that you frequent – if one gets hacked and your password details stolen, the perpetrators will have access to every website you’re a member of. The best approach is to use unique passwords for each website. How do we go about that in a secure and manageable way?

The first thing you’ll need to do when asked to enter a password for a site you’re signing up with, is to generate a secure password. To give you an example, we’re currently using long passwords consisting of randomly generated letters, numbers and symbols – for example ‘c=8CdqY+o%’. That looks (and is) really random … and with the inclusion of symbols and the use of anywhere between 6 and 12 characters, it’s really, really strong. How do we do this? Well a combination of ways really, but our go-to application is the open-source Password Safe. This little application lets you generate, store and retrieve passwords in a user-friendly manner.

For general online use, it’s hard to go past the fully online Lastpass. This application is similar to Password Safe, but it works within your browser, automatically logging you in as required. The benefit of Lastpass over Password Safe is that it’s online – ie. accessible from anywhere using a single master password. Very handy!

As a final resort (or maybe even your first port of call) most browsers now have password managers built in, or have some kind of password generation/management extension or plugin available. Please use them – you won’t know yourself

Of course, there are also times when you need to find out what that line of asterisks is (in a software program for example) when you can’t remember it. For example my FTP software (which I use to transfer files between online and offline) hides entered passwords behind asterisks – aarrgghh!!! So, if we need to retrieve a password in this situation, we use a small application called Snadboy’s Revelation. Revelation has saved my bacon a number of times over the last 5-6 years – I can’t recommend it highly enough!

So now you have all of the tools you need to go forth and sign up for that website with the confidence that your password is secure and you can retrieve it as and when required!