Video: How to Protect Your Online Identity with a Password Manager

October is cyber security awareness month and it's all about creating a strong online defense today we're focusing on the heart of your online security your passwords what's up everybody welcome back to ecurity Planet your goto channel for everything cyber security in this video we're diving into the world of passwords and how to make remembering complex passwords for all your online accounts a painless process the national Institute of Standards and Technology also known as nist recently updated their password guidelines these guidelines offer detailed recommendations for creating strong passwords which is a crucial part of protecting yourself from cyber attacks previously passwords might require a mix of lri case and lowercase letters numbers and symbols while these are still good practices n now prioritizes length over complexity meaning the longer passwords the more secure they are nist recommends creating passwords are at least 12 characters or go for the ultimate password security by creating pass races up to 64 characters so why the shift well attackers use automated tools and things like password lists to help them crack passwords as a penetration tester I've used several tools and techniques to crack basic passwords like I don't know spring 2024 exclamation point in mere seconds so the longer and more unique the password is the harder it is to crack think of it as like a lock the more complex the combination the stronger the security so if it's that easy what's the catch now we all have a lot of accounts in fact recent Studies have shown that one person has an average of a 100 accounts these include banking shopping streaming and more with so many online accounts creating and remembering long and unique passwords for each account can feel like an impossible task and this is why nist also recommends using a password manager I want you to think of a password manager like your own personal password vault it securely stores all of your unique and complex passwords and you only need to remember one strong master password for the manager itself so how exactly does a password manager work it's simple you create a strong master password and the manager securely encrypts and stores all of your passwords for all your different websites and accounts when you need to log into an account you access the password manager to find the correct password or you can set it to fill the username and password automatically now while all of this sounds great not so fast you see it's important that you do create a strong master password and make sure to remember it because if an attacker were to figure out your master password then that means they would have access to all of your passwords and if you forget your password well you lose all of your passwords using a password manager is surprisingly easy so here's a quick step-by-step guide first choose your password manager make sure to research your password manager that suits your needs there are tons of great password managers out there some of the popular options include one password last pass dash lane bit Warden and Nord pass next download and install your password manager follow the instructions for your chosen platform whether it's your phone computer or other mobile device create a strong master password now remember this is your key so make sure it's super secure don't use guessable items birthdays pet names or anything anything that could be found on social media or from a simple search take it from a hacker next start adding accounts browse to your accounts log in and save that information in your Vault or enter existing login information for your sites directly into the password manager the password manager will then offer to generate new strong passwords for each account lastly turn on autofill this will let the password manager automatically fill in your login details when you visit websites remember strong password passwords are the key to online security so don't wait to secure your accounts right now head down to the comment section below and let us know which password manager you're curious about we'd love to hear your thoughts thanks for watching ecurity Planet I'm Davin Jackson and I'll see you in the next video and remember stay informed stay secure and stay safe

This transcript was generated automatically from the video's captions and may contain errors.