4 Password Rules Everyone Should Follow, According To Data Security Experts

Steven Puetzer via Getty Images Your passwords protect your most valuable information. A password is actually “one of the cybersecurity choices users have real control over,” explained Aaron Pritz, CEO of cybersecurity firm Reveal Risk. This way, “you don’t even have to remember the password, which is kind of nice.” “It reduces your cognitive load to remembering one master password,” said Kamide. Maril Vernon, a security architect and certified ethical hacker, said that even in the event that a password manager company itself got hacked, this is not as bad as other breaches, “because the password manager company doesn’t actually store your master password to unlock your vault.” In other words, even if a criminal downloaded a copy of your password manager vault, they cannot see your passwords because only you have the master password. “When I use a password manager, I have a master password, and I also have authentication code that I use through an authenticator that changes basically like every minute,” Kamide said.