Summary
While sharing a password is usually not a good idea, there are times when you can’t avoid it. For example, services that are shared with your family will often require a single, shared login. When you do need to share a password, here is how you can do it safely.
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Transcript
Tomorrow is World Password Day, a day created to raise awareness of good password practices. Today, we begin a three-part series on how to protect your passwords. Today’s episode, we’ll discuss how to store and share passwords safely.
For Personal Tech Media, this is Two Minute Tech. I’m Jim Herman.
If you’ve listened to my shows for even just a month or two, you’ve probably heard me mention that you should never share your passwords through a text message or an email. And while sharing your password should generally be avoided altogether, there are times when you have to do it. For example, you’ll probably need to share the password to a streaming service with everyone in your family, unless that service allows each person to set up their own login.
So if you do need to share a password with your family, how can you do it safely? As I mentioned, putting the password in an email or a text message is unsafe. In many cases, text messages and emails have extremely limited encryption while the data is transmitted. Other people may try to put passwords into an online Word document or a Google Doc, but encryption is limited and nothing hides the password when the file is opened.
However, there is a way to share passwords safely and it’s a solution you’ve likely heard me mention before, a password manager. You’ll have one place to save the password and when it changes, everyone else gets those changes automatically. While some password managers will only allow sharing if you’re on a family plan, this feature alone makes it well worth the money.