Password Manager

A password manager is a small program that remembers all your passwords, so you only have to remember one. It keeps them in a locked file on your phone or your computer, fills them into the right website for you, and makes new ones that nobody could guess.

Here is why it matters more than almost anything else a small business can buy. Most owners use the same password for their email, their bank and the shop's social media page. That is the biggest own goal we see. Break into one and you have all three. Stolen email and password pairs are sold in bulk, and a machine tries them on hundreds of other sites within hours. Your bank login ends up only as safe as the weakest forum you ever signed up to.

A manager ends that habit, because you never type the passwords yourself. A long random password is no harder to use than a short one when the software does the typing. Most managers also tell you when a password you still use has appeared in a public leak. That warning is hard to get any other way, and it is often the first time an owner learns that an old account was broken into years ago.

Now the part nobody enjoys. Everything sits behind one master password, and that one you must remember yourself. If you forget it, nobody can send it to you, not the company that made the software and not us. They never keep a copy, which is exactly why they cannot rescue you. Most offer a printed recovery sheet or a trusted contact instead. Print it on the first day, keep it where you keep the passports, and test it once while nothing is wrong. Linkysoft will never ask a client for a master password, and no honest supplier will either.

Pick a long phrase for that one password, four ordinary words you will not forget, and add a second step so a stolen password on its own is still not enough. Our entry on two-factor authentication explains how. When Linkysoft begins a cybersecurity review for a client, the password written on a note under the keyboard turns up before anything technical does. It is the cheapest problem to fix and the one that stops the most break-ins.