For years, I read many, many articles about password managers – much like this one – and despite the fact that I’ve been working in the information security field for about a decade, I still resisted trying them out. It seemed like a lot of hassle, and who needs more of that?
Instead, I kept an arsenal of passwords in my head: A few “disposable” ones for sites I didn’t care much about that I reused constantly, a couple other slightly-more complicated passwords that I used more sparingly, and for a few really crucial sites (mainly financial ones) I had long, complex, and unique passwords that I managed to remember due to sheer repetition and stubbornness.
While on a long vacation abroad a few years ago, I found myself needing to send an urgent message to family, and my email account was one of those accounts using a long, complex password. Since it had been several weeks since I’d logged in, no matter what I tried I just could not remember my password. I tried to log in so many times I locked myself out of my account.
Mea culpa.
