PSA: My friend in Austin said his email got hacked because he used the same password for his fantasy football league and his bank.

It hit different because he's a smart guy who works in tech, and he admitted he just got lazy about making new passwords for 'low risk' sites.

4 comments

4 Comments

wood.eric2mo ago

How bad is it really though? Most people reuse passwords, its just the way it is. If the fantasy site got hacked, that sucks but its not like they got into his actual bank account right? They would still need his username and probably a text code. Feels like the risk gets blown out of proportion sometimes.

murray.jana2mo agoMost Upvoted

But what about the 24% of people who use the same password everywhere, no extra codes?

hall.joel29d ago

Actually that 24 percent number is probably way higher if you look at how people actually behave. Most surveys ask what people do versus what they admit to, so real world reuse might be closer to 50 percent or more. But the bigger issue is that text codes aren't some magic shield. If somebody steals your phone number through a SIM swap, all those extra codes become useless. That's how hackers got into a bunch of crypto accounts last year. Plus even if you use different passwords, having the same one for your email is almost as dangerous as using it everywhere. Once they get into your email they can reset passwords for everything else anyway.

dakotab932mo ago

Wait, you think text codes stop them? They can just steal your phone number too lol.