Passwords

[Vraith]

I always wondered about something. Why do Macs rarely get attacked by these kind of things? Is it just that there are so many less macs than microsoft machines or are macs less vulnerable? I have never put protection on my mac and have never been 'invaded'.

My wife loves her Mac, so I checked on this once and according to a geek friend of mine, it's a bit of both. Less market share, so less damage that can be done, lower infection numbers. But also, the way the OS is coded is tighter and requires more permissions for programs to install/run. IIR the conversation correctly, Mac also has a better firewall, and built in potent and frequently updated anti-malware.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Do you do a separate one for each site?

Given their complexity I can generally use only one, but that requires me to change the password at every place I use it when one site wants it to change. Right now I have maybe 7 or 8 different ones but that sort of mental juggling isn't too difficult for me. *shrug* Lots of practice.

I always wondered about something. Why do Macs rarely get attacked by these kind of things? Is it just that there are so many less macs than microsoft machines or are macs less vulnerable? I have never put protection on my mac and have never been 'invaded'.

I concur with Vraith's assessment--the limited market share combined with certain features of MacOS security being inherently better makes it far more difficult to get malware if you have a Mac.
The other thing to consider is this--if some black hat wants to steal money or information he won't be going after you. Instead, he will target a business or organization that has information and money worth stealing. Most of those people aren't interested in the money, anyway, because they are more likely to be caught if they try to go after bank accounts especially if the information they steal can be sold for more than money they could have stolen. To whom do they sell a company's information? The company's competitors. The "business consultant" they hired managed to "compile" the database, for example.

[Major Isoor]

Well, I've got about five frequently-used passwords (not including variants), and although I'm not the best at remembering names, etc. my passwords are all but etched into my brain!

Although in terms of trying to remember which password is used for what site, (due to some sites having caps and symbol requirements, or even a character limit - I hate those sites - I've got a fair few different versions, annoyingly) I keep the website names as well as a 'hint'/cut-down version of the password* with it, all within a stowed-away document with a slightly-misleading name.


*For example, if my password was "watch.0423-Kevin" without quotes, I might list it as "w.4-K" or something similar, so that if anyone DOES chance upon the document, at least they won't know what the actual passwords are.