Pro tip: Stop preaching password managers to everyone you meet

I told a guy at a coffee shop in Portland last month that he should use a password manager after he mentioned getting hacked on Facebook. He looked me dead in the eye and said 'I trust my memory more than some app that holds all my keys in one basket.' Now I wonder, is pushing complex solutions actually making people less secure by turning them off from basic safety? Anyone else run into this wall where simple advice gets rejected for being too much work?

4 comments

4 Comments

rosepark1mo agoMost Upvoted

Honestly, my aunt still writes passwords on sticky notes stuck to her monitor.

rivera.hannah1mo ago

Wait, are you serious? I honestly can't believe people still do that in 2024 (like, hasn't she heard of a password manager or something)?

fionat552d ago

Rivera, right?? And the crazy thing is, she had a legitimate security concern (the "all eggs in one basket" fear) which is totally fair, but she'd fallen for two phishing scams already because she couldn't remember which password went where. I tried explaining that a password manager actually helps with that, but she wasn't having it. So now she's got a little code system in a physical notebook (like, color-coded tabs and everything) which is honestly more work than just using a manager in the first place. It's wild the mental gymnastics people will do to avoid changing a habit, you know?

margaretc421mo ago

Yeah, the whole "all my keys in one basket" thing comes up a lot when I try to help people with this. I had a neighbor who got phished twice and still wouldn't touch a password manager because she was worried about "one hack wiping everything out." It's frustrating because like, I get where they're coming from, but we're all recycling the same five passwords anyway, which is its own kind of disaster. I've had better luck just showing people how to write down their passwords in a small notebook they keep at home, then at least they're not using "Password123" for everything. Baby steps, I guess.