My mom's email got hacked because she used the same password for everything

About two weeks ago, my mom called me panicking because her email was sending weird messages to her contacts. I went over to her place and sure enough, someone had gotten in. The problem was she used the same password for her email, her library account, and some old online store from like 2015. I remembered reading about password managers but she was totally against installing anything new. So I tried something simple: I wrote down three completely different, long passwords on a piece of paper for her main accounts. I told her to think of them as sentences, like 'MyDogRexLovesThePark2024!' for email. She taped it inside a kitchen cabinet. It's been working. She hasn't had another issue since. Has anyone else had success with the physical paper method for family members who refuse to use tech solutions?

3 comments

3 Comments

william_harris8d ago

Your mom's situation is so familiar! My dad did the exact same thing with his old AOL password. @seth_shah has a point about the risks, but sometimes you have to meet people where they are. A paper list inside a favorite book feels safer to them than an app they don't understand. The goal is to break the one-password habit first, and it sounds like you did that perfectly.

seth_shah8d ago

Honestly, that paper trick sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. What if she loses it, or someone else finds it? A fire or a spill ruins everything. A password manager is secure and you only need to remember one master password.

-1

hill.margaret8d ago

But what if she forgets the master password? Then she's totally locked out of everything at once. A paper list in her house is a risk she can actually see and understand.