Warning: someone called me out on using the same password everywhere

Back in 2018, a buddy in IT security saw me log into my email at a coffee shop in Austin. He said 'dude, if that password gets leaked, you lose everything.' I brushed him off at first. But he showed me how to check Have I Been Pwned on my phone, and I had 12 breaches tied to that one password. That's what finally pushed me to a password manager. Has anyone else had a friend or coworker call them out like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

blairc901mo ago

My cousin who works in IT caught me using the same password for my bank and my Netflix account back in 2019. He literally grabbed my phone and showed me the breach list from some site called FireFox Monitor or something like that. I had over 15 hits on that one password including my old MySpace account from high school. That was the wake up call I needed to switch everything over to a password manager app. It took me a whole weekend to change all my accounts but I felt so much better after. Now I just let the app make random passwords for everything and I don't have to remember a single one.

jamie_adams1mo ago

Yeah, that weekend grind of resetting everything is brutal but totally worth it. I did the same after my email got pwned in some data breach and could finally sleep at night. Password managers are honestly the only way to stay safe online now, right?

martin.riley1mo ago

Your cousin grabbing your phone and showing you the breach list sounds terrifying, I'm pretty sure that's what digital intervention looks like." "Reminds me of that feeling when you realize the same password that kept your Netflix safe also protected your bank account, real security theater right there." "But honestly, after that wake up call, letting the app make random nonsense passwords feels way better than trusting my own brain.