On Security Breaches and Password Protection

Not a lot of people know this, but majority of all those Email/Facebook/Instagram hacks that you have probably seen on social this past year of 2021 are only happening because everyone keeps reusing their passwords across different accounts (IE: for years, my mother kept reusing the same password for her emails, Facebook and bank accounts until I made her change it all into unique passwords). Just this past year of 2021, I’ve seen at least two dozen of people post on social that their accounts got hacked. However, not enough of them spent the time figuring out why.

At first, having your Email/Facebook/Instagram hacked may not sound like such a big deal, but it very much is. If you’ve used the same email account for 5+ years, chances are you’ve transmitted your IDs, financial statements, bank accounts, private messages, pictures and more over that email account. I dare you to go into your Sent folder right now and type ‘ID’ in the seach bar above and see what result show up. If that doesn’t make you worried, try typing ‘Tax Return’ or ‘CRA’ instead and watch your anxiety levels increase surprise

While going through the Security Audit earlier this summer, I was introduced to NordPass (click this link to go to their Website) NordPass is a password manager that has a couple of very handy security tools. Password Health tool scans all of your logins and notifies you if any of your passwords are being reused (meaning that if someone guesses one password, they could hold many accounts hostage at the same time). Password Generator tool allows you to generate unique and complex passwords for each and every account (so if someone takes one account hostage, they don’t get access to anything else). However, most impressive is the Data Breach Scanner tool that literally scans the Dark Web for any evidence that any of your login credentials have been compromised and are being actively sold on the Dark Web. If any of your accounts show up on this list, it’s highly recommended to update your passwords to avoid any possible security breaches down the road.

I’m not new to password managers, but I’ve never seen one that did such an amazing job at all three of those things listed above. The NordPass Password Manager itself is actually FREE, but the three tools listed above are meant to be premium features for paid customers. Luckily, they allow a 7-day free trial so you can give it a go and judge for yourself. Last time I checked they also had some Holiday Promos. Make sure to check them out!

Disclaimer: This was NOT a paid endorsement. I have NO association with NordPass, but i do find their tools very useful.