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TIL my uncle's "just use the same password everywhere" advice almost cost me everything
My uncle Bob, who works in IT for 20 years, told me last year that using one strong password for everything was fine as long as I changed it every 6 months. I trusted him because he's the family tech guy. Then last month, my Spotify account got hacked. I didn't think much of it until someone used that same password to get into my PayPal and drained $340 from my account. Turns out the Spotify breach leaked my email and password combo, and since I used it everywhere, they got into 5 different accounts. Bank took 3 weeks to refund the money and I had to reset like 40 accounts. Has anyone else had a family member give them bad security advice that backfired this bad?
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andrew6461mo ago
Damn that's rough, glad you got your money back after those three weeks though. @wendy_garcia16 is right, family tech tips can be a total trap. My cousin swore by writing passwords in a notebook and I almost followed that awful idea. Changing one password everywhere every few months is such outdated advice, it's crazy it came from an IT guy.
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