Having a good password is the best way to secure your account from hacking. That is, or at least should be, common knowledge by now. If you’ve followed the usual guidelines, your password should be fairly long (at least fifteen characters), it should include uppercase letters, symbols, punctuation marks, and numbers. Pretty much anything that can be typed on a keyboard should go into the password.
That’s very helpful for fighting hackers, but it’s also fairly difficult to remember these long, nonsensical combinations. The fact that you shouldn’t reuse the same password doesn’t help either. So it’s natural that you may forget a few of your login details from time to time. Luckily, there are safe ways to recover lost passwords quickly.
Prevention is the Best Medicine
If you’re prone to forgetting your passwords and even login credentials, it’s best to set up backup plans for your password data. The best ways to do this are:
Using a Specialized Password Saving Software
People’s forgetfulness has fueled an entire industry of password keeping software. These programs allow you to generate, store and manage complex passwords that would be very difficult to crack. One such program is KeePass. Our tutorial will help you set it up in no time:
Set up Recovery Methods
Almost all accounts require an email address, which can be used for password recovery. Nowadays you can get back your password with a variety of recovery methods:
- Set up alternate emails – sites often have the option to set up more than one email if you’ve forgotten the password of your original one.
- Phone Number – many sites offer recovery of lost password through a telephone number. You can receive a recovery call either through text message or an automated phone call.
- Trusted Contacts – some sites offer to send a new passcode to trusted contacts that were set up by the user.
Bear in mind that increasing the recovery methods can loosen up the security of the account. If hackers get access to one recovery method, they can use it to steal your account. Increasing the ways to recover your password also increases the chance of crook using those same methods to steal the password.
Email Recovery – Quick and Easy
Email recovery is the quickest way to get your password back. This recovery method was perfected in recent years, to the point where it’s universal. Most sites work like this:
- While you’re in the Log-in screen, click on Forgotten Password
- Type in your email and proceed
- An email message with a new password or an URL to the site will be sent
From there on you can set a new password. Just make sure to remember it this time.
Remembering Passwords
Writing your password on paper can dangerous if someone steals it, but most password theft happens through remote hacking. It may be safer to store you password the old fashioned way in your home. Simply remembering the password is probably the most secure way, but since this article is about password recovery, it may be a bit cruel to offer that option. Password managers like KeePass are helpful, but they can also be hacked.
How To Remember Your Password?
Password crafting is a tricky skill. Easy to remember passwords are almost always easy to crack. That’s why short words, keyboard buttons that are in-line (like qwerty, asdfg, zxcvb or 12345678) or even swapping letters with numbers (1 for I, 3 for E, 5 for S, etc.) for normal words (pa55w0rd) are very susceptible to hacking. It may be for the best not to trust password scoring meters too much.
The problem is that people have a hard time remembering long combinations. The brain simply isn’t built to store this kind of information. If you find it difficult, don’t worry, you’re in the same boat as the rest of us. The most important thing is to secure your email with the best password you can remember. That will make the recovery much safer. Change your passwords frequently and try to store them in a safe way, especially if they unlock social media, business, or e-store accounts.
