Got roasted on a forum for using "Password123" and it finally clicked

Some dude on r/cybersecurity called me out 2 years ago for having the worst password habits. Said I was basically inviting hackers to my front door. Made me switch to a password manager and set up 2FA on everything. Now I use 16 char random passwords and sleep way better. Anyone else get shamed into better security habits?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesleyb209d agoMost Upvoted

Thing is most people still reuse passwords across accounts after getting shamed into changing just their main one.

betty_kelly94d ago

The whole password reuse thing is just a symptom of a bigger problem nobody talks about. Most websites make it impossible to actually have good security because they enforce dumb rules like capital letter, number, special character, but then limit you to 12 characters. Or they lock you out after 3 tries and force reset emails that go to your hacked email. The real fix should be sites supporting hardware keys or at least offering one time codes through an authenticator app, but they wont because it costs them money. Until companies prioritize security over convenience and profit, people will keep reusing passwords out of pure frustration. Blaming users for following the path of least resistance is pointless when the system is rigged against them.

bennett.evan8d ago

Yeah that's true but I dont think shaming is the main reason people change passwords. Most people only change their password when they get a notification that some site they used got hacked. Then they might change that one password but still use the same password on 10 other sites. The real issue is nobody wants to deal with a password manager or remember 20 different passwords. And even when people do use different passwords they usually just change one letter or add a number at the end which is basically the same thing.