I spent the last two hours updating user IDs and passwords on over 25 different online accounts. I cannot believe that my husband and I require the services of over 20 companies just to run our everyday lives. Included in the list were banks, brokerage firms, health insurance companies, life insurance companies, multiple phone companies, Internet providers, satellite TV providers, & water & electric companies, just to name a few. I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to update all of my online accounts with new passwords. After all, at work I’m prompted to change my system password every 30 days. But up until today, I had never changed the passwords of any of my online accounts.
Do you change the passwords of your online accounts? Do you think there’s a need to update them?
I just did the same dance about two weeks ago. Changing passwords frequently is always a great idea for many reasons. I just wish it wasn’t so painful…most places have different requirements (usernames vs email addresses, password quality, etc) which make people’s lives more difficult.
I completely agree. I had no idea how long it would take me to change 25 different passwords. Plus as you mentioned each site has different requirements on the length and makeup of the user IDs and passwords. It definitely took much longer than I expected.