Backup usernames and backup passwords may be something you will never have to use, but on the other hand what happens if your computer goes wrong?
Do you have your usernames and passwords stored elsewhere? Is your computer setup to just remember most of them whenever you go to the site ?
The kind of passwords and usernames that you need to make a note of usually consist of
- Internet accounts / sites you login to
- Operating system usernames and passwords
- Email account usernames and passwords
Probably the best thing you can do is to make up a spreadsheet with a password, using something like Excel is ok and we can also password the document for piece of mind in case it ever falls into the wrong hands.
When you create any password try and make it as hard as possible for anyone other than you or people you trust to know, use a combination of the following format.
At least 7 characters , and a mixture of lower case, upper case, alphabetical and numerical characters. So for example we could use
america
but this would be far too simple for someone to guess or crack, you could always use
am3ricA
so in a way it still looks like America and is easy to remember, but its far harder to crack these kind of passwords as they are never found in dictionarys
So as soon as you get a new username and password dont just enter it and allow your computer to remember it, if your computer ever breaks you could lose the password along with all your other data.
Even worse if your computer is ever lost / stolen anyone logging on will then have access to any of remembered accounts and passwords. Put together a secure spreadsheet using something like Excel its very easy to do and will save a lot of time if the worst ever happens.
You can also store any Internet links in here as well so you remember the location for the username / password
checkout our other backup articles
computer adviser backup usernames article