Why I Never Use The Same Password Twice

Data protection is a concern that came up with digitalization. While being able to access a large amount of data on different devices is very convenient, it also raises security concerns. Convenience is a double-edged sword. It can be easier for you to access your emails from anywhere in the world but it also means a malicious person anywhere in the world can access your emails as well. This is why cyber security is such a big industry in this era.

There are some people who don't take passwords and cyber security seriously and use the same password everywhere. And their reason for that is usually the same: "Who is going to steal my password? Why bother?"

But the thing is, hackers don't need to target you specifically to steal your password. What they usually do is hack a large database with sensitive account information. Let's say you signed up for a food delivery service on your phone. You entered your name, email, password, and home address. Hackers might attack this service and steal all the account information on their database which includes your personal information as well. If their attack is successful, they will have your name, email, password, and home address, and they are all associated. This means they know which password belongs to which email address. So let's say you used the same password for your email account and the food delivery service. Now the hackers can steal your email account with the information they stole from the food delivery service's database.

So even though only one of the services you signed up for got hacked, because you used the same password for all of the services you signed up for, basically all of your accounts are now vulnerable. And you can't secure them without changing your password for each of your accounts.

This is why using the same password more than once is always risky and can lead to massive security breaches.