In all the best children’s stories the giant demands ‘Who goes there?’ and you need the password to get by.  Today we all have dozens and dozens of places for which we need passwords.  It’s impossible to remember them all – and it’s hardly surprising that some people are ‘one-password-users’ with one that works for everything.  Whilst this is understandable, it’s not advisable.

If you really can’t keep track of your password just make sure that your email address has a different password to everything else.  This means that, if someone does crack your password (or get control of one of your accounts through phishing) they can’t reset your passwords without you knowing about it.

To make life easy you could have three passwords:

• A low level, easy-to-remember password for basic stuff like information site log ons.
• A more secure password for social media accounts etc.
• A high security password for anything where money is involved, like PayPal or your Bank.

Remember that, if your Ebay account automatically logs into your PayPal account, for instance, you will need to secure your Ebay account too.

My advice is to change all three of these every month or so – you could even have three or four rotating sets of passwords so all you need to remember is which set you’re on!

If you do this, when the giant demands ‘Who goes there?’, you’ll not only be able to get past him, but he won’t plunder your treasure in the process.