Nate Weiner

Remember Just One Password That’s Unique For Every Site

Like anyone using the internet today, I have a lot of accounts that need passwords. Bank accounts, social networks, new startups I’m checking out, email accounts, blogs, forums, you name it. Though I keep unique passwords for important services (like servers and email accounts), it still is a pain to have to remember passwords for every service I’m using on the internet. So after a while I find myself reusing passwords. But that’s not very safe, because if one service is compromised and my password is found out, everything else goes too. Well last week as I was begrudgingly making up another password I realized a simple way to make this madness a little easier. It’s a simple way to only have to remember one password, but have it be different for every site.

How to Make the Password:

Step One

First, rather than remembering a word for your password, remember a phrase instead. For example: “I Have Way Too Many Passwords To Remember” Then take the first letter of each word as your password, so… “I Have Way Too Many Passwords To Remember” would be: ihwtmptr This makes your actual password look very random. Alone, this would be a pretty secure password.

Step Two

Say you need a password for your bank (ex. Wells Fargo). Just take the first letters of the name (Wells Fargo = wf) and add it to your password: wfihwtmptr Or another example, if you need a password for Facebook: fihwtmptr This way your password is different for every site, is secure, and all you have to do is remember one phrase!

Extras

You can make this a little less obvious by putting the initials from Step Two in the middle of the password instead of the front. You could even make this easier on yourself by using the name of the site/service in the passphrase. For example: “What Is My Facebook Account Password?” would be: wimfap