umar59•12d ago

My cousin told me to use the same password for everything... what a mess

So my cousin Mike, who works in IT, told me like two years ago that it was totally fine to reuse passwords across sites as long as the password was strong. I trusted him because he's the 'tech guy' in the family. Fast forward to last month, I got a notification that someone logged into my Spotify account from a city I've never been to in Texas. Then my email started getting password reset requests for my Amazon and PayPal accounts. Turns out one of those random browser games I signed up for back in 2023 got hacked, and since I used that same login everywhere, they got into like 6 of my accounts. It took me three full evenings to change everything and set up a password manager. Has anyone else had a family member give them bad cybersecurity advice that came back to bite them?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamesm3812d ago

I have to disagree with the whole premise here. Passwords are like house keys, you don't need a different key for every single door in your neighborhood. A single strong password that you never use on sketchy sites is perfectly fine, the problem isn't reusing passwords, its signing up for random browser games and unknown services in the first place. Your cousin gave you solid advice for someone who has a basic, boring, normal online life where you stick to major, established sites. The real mess here is that you ignored the first rule of security, which is to not hand your keys to strangers and then act surprised when someone copies them.

the_paul12d ago

But that analogy falls apart when one site gets hacked and your key works everywhere.