I finally caught myself reusing passwords after a close call

I always thought I was careful with passwords until I got a notification that someone tried logging into my email from a city in Romania. That's when I realized I'd been using the same password for my email and my old gaming account that got hacked years ago. I sat there for 10 minutes checking all my accounts and found 8 of them shared the same password. Has anyone else had a moment like this where a small scare made you rethink your whole security setup?

2 comments

2 Comments

ross.jessica11d ago

Yeah, "close call" is putting it lightly, right? Once you start digging it's crazy how deep the rabbit hole goes with those reused passwords.

fiona_lewis3711d ago

That "rabbit hole" part really hit me because I remember when I found out my old college email password was the same as my Netflix login and my gym membership. I was going through old accounts last year trying to clean stuff up and I realized I'd been using basically the same password since like 2010, just adding a number at the end when sites forced me to change it. It's scary because once someone gets one password they can just try it everywhere, like that thing where hackers try your email on every site they can think of. My sister actually got locked out of her Facebook last month because someone used her old password from a data breach years ago, and she didn't even know her account was compromised until she couldn't log in.