A password can be a user’s weakest security point and probably has been since we start using user accounts more and more. As we tend to rely on the internet more, for a variety of reasons, our need for user accounts has grown dramatically leaving us with a large trail of passwords.

The majority of internet users, who simply don’t know any better, use the most obvious of passwords that are popular dictionary words. Whilst this leaves theirs account at risk from being accessed by someone unknown those who use the same password for multiple accounts leave themselves at bigger risk.

How can you remember so many usernames and passwords?

I’d probably be right to say that anyone reading this has more than one user account and password that they would use regularly, whether it be for an email service or a social website such as twitter. When you end up owning a couple of hundred passwords, which is easy, it can become more difficult to keep track of every single password. Managing your passwords better will help tighten security as I’ve previously posted and using some sort of password manager can help.

12 Password Managers to try

Here is 12 different password managers that you could try, some are free and others have a cost.

• My Password Manager – www.www.mypasswordmanager.com
• Free Online Password Manager – www.passpack.com
• Quest Password Manager – www.quest.com
• Citrix Password Manager 4.6 – www.citrix.com
• Password Safe – www.passwordsafe.sourceforge.net (Free & recommended)
• Password Manager XP – www.cp-lab.com
• KeePass Password Safe – www.keepass.info
• Sticky Password – www.stickypassword.com
• Easy Password Manager – www.passwordmanager.co.uk
• Efficient Password Manager – www.efficientpasswordmanager.com
• AES Password Manager – www.aespasswordmanager.com
• Password Manager Pro – www.manageengine.com

A laptop serial number has importance, its proof of ownership and can help identity you as the owner if it’s ever misplaced or stolen. If you are in ownership of a wonderful new laptop after the Christmas period then the first thing you should do is record the serial number.

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When you purchase a product or serivce you usually are given the option to register as a customer. There are various reasons why manfacture do this.

• Marketing
• To Receive product updates
• Proof of ownership

If your laptop ever becomes stolen you’ll want as much help as possible to attempt to recovery the device. Registering a product or service allows to inform the manfacture that you have legal ownership of the laptop so if its ever recovered under a different owner the manufacture will know its stolen property. To reigster your laptop you’ll be ask to provide its serial number, which should be recorded as part of your asset tagging proceedure. You maybe required to provide further proof of ownership depending on the manufacture of the laptop.

It should be pretty much the norm to record a serial number of any electronic devices that we decide to purchase. Given their price and the endless things that can go wrong having the serial number recorded and stored safely is pretty much common practice.

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If you follow all of the 16 protection steps for laptop protection you can still be at risk of misplacing your laptop or it being stolen. When it comes to a business and its data risks cannot be taken, especially when the data is sensitive and tools are widely available to avoid those risks. By tracking our mobile devices, such as a laptop, we are given more control of our data residing on the hard drive of that device for extra laptop security.

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