Computer Scammers and Hacks/1password

[Dutch Uncle]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-46323625/what-happened-when-sextortion-scammers-targeted-a-bbc-trending-reporter

Given past hacks on Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc this could be relevant to many people who have never visited dodgy sites. I see the expert the BBC spoke to recommended 1password - does anyone have any experience of that? To me it would seem that if you put all your eggs in that one basket and it is then hacked/breached itself (e.g. disguntled former employee) then you are really in a bad place.

Any computer security experts on here with any comments?

[albie]

I don't know about 1Password, but using a password manager might help.

Without knowing the operating system you have, it is difficult to be more specific.
Keepass has options for different systems;
https://keepass.info/download.html

Some privacy sites recommend this;
https://masterpassword.app/

Info on YouTube about how to set up.

but I have not used it myself.

[Ho]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-46323625/what-happened-when-sextortion-scammers-targeted-a-bbc-trending-reporter

Given past hacks on Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc this could be relevant to many people who have never visited dodgy sites. I see the expert the BBC spoke to recommended 1password - does anyone have any experience of that? To me it would seem that if you put all your eggs in that one basket and it is then hacked/breached itself (e.g. disguntled former employee) then you are really in a bad place.

Any computer security experts on here with any comments?

Dutch

With 1Password you secure your account with a single master password.  1Password don't store this anywhere in their infrastructure so they can never give away access to your store of passwords if they were hacked.  In fact, they'll never even know this password. The password makes up part of the encryption key you need to unlock the data on the users 1Password account.

Obviously this means there's a responsibility on the user to not create a weak master password or stick it on a post-it note on their monitor!!

Disclaimer:  I'm not a security expert, but I run a fintech company and have a regulatory responsibility to manage IT risk - we had security experts in to implement procedures like the use of 1Password for all work related accounts

[Dutch Uncle]

Albie & Ho

Very many thanks for your comments.

From my side I have no indication that I have any problems, I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about such central systems - so Ho - your comment is very interesting indeed.

I am now retired, but worked all my life in an organistion where security was absolutely paramount, and I was working with computers since 1970. So among other things we were forced to change passwords very regularly. So I have simply continued those habits/practices and have unique and strong passwords (upper case & lower case, numeric and special characters mix, no words) for all my important accounts, and still change them regularly. I don't store things on the cloud and I make regular backups on external hard drives. Not OCD or paranoid at all 

I will think about 1password (or something similar), but I am not quite ready yet.

Once again many thanks