Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
In this guide, you will learn:
- What is Password Sharing?
- Why People Share Passwords
- Password Sharing Risks
- Safe Password Sharing Practices
- How To Share Passwords Safely with Trend Micro ID Protection
While most apps and websites boast security measures, the risk of unauthorized access to your online accounts or data theft always lingers in the digital world. This threat is commonly known as hacking.
What is Password Sharing?
Password sharing is how you give your login information, email address or password to someone else so they can access your app, subscription, or service.
Why People Share Passwords
Password sharing became a norm because of subscription-based services and apps. Before you can watch your beloved shows and movies from Netflix, or if you are tired of hearing senseless ads when listening to the latest beats on Spotify and YouTube Premium, you need an account with a paid subscription service to enjoy these.
These subscription services are not cheap. To save money, we succumb to get crafty and resourceful by sharing account credentials. Doing this cuts the costs in half, even more if shared more than once. To share subscriptions with your friends or family, you have one account that everyone must know its account name and password.
Password Sharing Risks
If you accidentally shared passwords to someone, your account may no longer be secure. Here are its risks:
- Your passwords can also be shared to others without you knowing it.
- Your accounts may be vulnerable to keyloggers or sniffers. Because you don’t know how they use your account details, they may accidentally log in to unsecure websites or connect to an unsecured network. Once logged in, someone can get personal identifiable information you saved on your account.
- You may be locked out of your account. Someone may change your account details, like update your password to a new one so you can no longer access your account.
Safe Password Sharing Practices
The best way to share passwords is to do it verbally. This avoids having a digital footprint of your account credentials.
If inevitable, and you fully trust the person you will share the passwords, here are a few options you can do to share them securely:
- Enable Two-Factor Authentication on all your accounts whenever possible. This feature lets you know someone is trying to log in to your accounts using the passwords you shared.
- Send your passwords through an encrypted email. It prevents the receiver of the email to accidentally share the email you sent to someone.
- When using Outlook, enable Encrypt or Do not forward via Options.
- When using Gmail, encrypt your email via Confidential Mode.
- If you have an Apple device (iPhone, iPad, Mac), you can use Airdrop to share your passwords.