Hello, all! GIJN recently asked me for a tip for International Women’s Day this election year. Because elections can increase aggression against journalists, I suggested a rather simple, but accessible, security bolster: a password manager.
Many of you might already have one, or at least have heard of it. A password manager, like 1Password, creates and saves your login info for you. It’s safer because you can have tons of super complex, hard-to-guess passwords, and they don’t repeat across websites. 1P does cost a little bit of money, so while I do recommend it, you may also want something cheaper.
Google Chrome’s built-in Password Manager is a free but less powerful alternative. Sometimes it forgets to suggest a new password – one of the key features of a manager. For that I recommend a third tool: the plainly-named Password Generator Plus.
It’s a very simple (and free) website that simply spits out a password based on criteria you may or may not need. The result will look something like this: “tFE9g[T`&8M:Vumb>(#H2” (don’t worry, that’s not actually one of mine).
So if you’re already using a high-quality manager, like 1P, great. If not, I’d recommend a browser you trust instead. And whenever you need a new login, open Password Generator Plus in a new tab and – importantly! – manually save that new one in your manager.
In a year of tense elections around the world, you can never be too careful. Protect your digital life, reporters!