Microsoft Says You SHOULD Re-use Passwords Across Sites
iSpeech.org
Ok so we constantly tell people not to reuse passwords across sites, because if they are stored in plain text (and leaked) those naughty hackers now have your e-mail address AND your password and can wreak havoc on your life.
Which is pretty much true, but Microsoft disagrees and there is some validity to what they say, if you MUST re-use passwords (which you shouldn’t) – do so only on low risk sites (anything without payment details really).
Keep the good passwords for the important sites (like online banking).
As for me, I say use a bloody password manager, generate different passwords for every site and make them all strong! A good online password manager is free, and even though some of them appear to not be totally secure (as we wrote a few days ago) – they are certainly better than not using one.
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I’m not sure why we are arguing about this though, I honestly don’t even know any of my passwords any more (or try to remember then) as for one, I have over 100 and I don’t have to. I use a password manager (PassPack in my case).
I only need to remember 1 login/password combo and 1 really strong keyphrase (which even the experts agree, is way better than a contiguous password).
You can read the full paper here – Password portfolios and the Finite-Effort User: Sustainably Managing Large Numbers of Accounts [PDF]
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