Note: This is the transcript of the speech I gave at Toastmasters club.

How many of you use websites like Google, Instagram or Twitter? We all use them. We also create accounts on multiple websites and apps such as Amazon, Netflix and Zomato.

When I had to create a new account on a website, it had certain demands for the password. It needs to be more than 8 characters long. It required at least one uppercase, one lowercase, one number, one special character, two strands of my hair and my soul. I got annoyed. Why can’t I use 123456 as my password? To satisfy the demands of the website I used Eikansh@123 with E capital as my password. It met all the criteria.

But is it safe and secure to use such a password? No. Is it safe to reuse it? Never. We should use strong passwords. A strong password should meet two criteria. It should be long and it should be random.

A password should be longer than 8 characters. The longer the password, the harder it is for the hacker to crack it. But having a long password is not enough. A strong password should be random too.

In 2021, a user on a hacker forum posted an 8.4 billion password combinations list. This is considered the largest password compilation list and is named RockYou2021. Considering how large the list is, there are less than 5 billion internet users in the world and this leak has double the entries.

This is the reason why we need a random password. Because if we don’t your password may match some combination from the list of 8.4 billion entries. Look at the password Eikansh@123. It is long but is it random? No. It contains my name followed by 123. It is one of the most common phrases used in a password. A random password ensures that there is a really low chance that anyone has used the password previously.

But no matter how strong the password is we can’t use it everywhere. Because if it gets leaked, attackers can use it to get into your important accounts such as internet banking or email. If somebody gets access to our main email account he/she can destroy our whole online life. They can get access to everything linked to your email such as your photos, your phone data etc.

Please raise your hand if you reuse your passwords. I get it. It is hard to create a random password and nearly impossible to memorise all of them. We can write them in a notebook. But it may get lost or somebody else can easily access it. We can store it in a file on our computer. But the computer can crash or it can be hacked. In short, none of the options is secure, reliable and portable.

One of the easy and free solutions is to use a password manager. They can generate random passwords of any length. All the passwords are stored securely and you need to remember one master password to access them. The passwords are stored on a server and can be accessed from your mobile and computer. You can also store bank card details or any other data in it. They provide a secure way to generate and store passwords.

You may think that how is it safe? We are trusting software to store all our sensitive data. But what if the password manager itself gets hacked? The hackers can have access to all the passwords. This is not possible. Even if hackers get access to all the data they will only see random gibberish. Password managers like Bitwarden use an extra layer of protection. They encrypt the data before storing it in their database. Only the master password can decrypt it. It is like a thief broke into a bank and opened all the lockers to only find pieces of paper instead of money.

I use a password manager called bitwarden. In Bitwarden, if you forget your master password you cannot recover it. It is a good thing for security. Only you have access to all your data no matter what happens.

Today on the Internet we can transfer money, order food and communicate with people. The accounts on the web have become our valuable possessions. We need strong and unique passwords for each account to protect them. The ease password managers provide is that we have to remember a single password. We have to remember it as your life depends on it. So, use a password manager and take your online security to next level.