I always thought my old password habits were fine until my neighbor's account got hit

My neighbor in apartment 3B had his email broken into last Tuesday because he reused the same password on a shopping site that got hacked. He told me the whole story over coffee and it freaked me out. I used to think having a couple of strong passwords I rotated was enough, but seeing it happen to someone I know changed my mind. Now I'm using a password manager and making a unique one for every single login, no matter how small the site seems. Has anyone else switched to a manager after a close call like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

mary_martin221h ago

Actually, it's not just small sites that get hacked.

verawhite12h ago

Yeah, that kind of wake-up call really hits different, doesn't it? I was the same way, totally convinced my system of three "strong" passwords was bulletproof. Reading about big data breaches never really moved me, but when my cousin's social media got taken over from a recipe forum hack, it clicked. It's just not worth the risk anymore. I finally got a password manager last year and it's a huge relief, even if it felt like a pain to set up at first.