How Can I Help My Elderly Relatives Remember Passwords?

The best way to help seniors remember passwords is to get them a password manager that is easy to use. Password managers eliminate the need to remember multiple passwords, so they will only have to remember one master password. 

Continue reading to learn why a password manager is the right option for helping the seniors in your life remember their passwords. 

What is a Password Manager?

A password manager is a tool that can help your elderly relatives remember their passwords. It works by securely storing all of their logins in a cloud-based vault and generating new, strong passwords when and wherever needed. When a login is required for a new account, the password manager will create the password for them and store it in their vault. This means when your elderly relatives go to that account to sign in, the password manager will automatically sign them in without them having to type a single character. 

What’s great about cloud-based password managers like Keeper is that your elderly relative will be able to access their vault from anywhere on any device. There’s never a need to worry about how they’re going to log in to their accounts because they’ll always have the ability to access their password vault whenever they need to. 

You’ve probably experienced having to remember passwords for your elderly relatives, since they have a hard time remembering them themselves, or they write them down on paper which is a risky practice. A password manager remembers all of the passwords for your elderly relatives, so they don’t have to. A great way to see if this is the right option for your loved ones is by getting them to start a free trial. If you’ve already decided this is the right option for your elderly relatives because you currently use Keeper Password Manager, upgrading to a family plan may be even better. With a family plan, you’ll have five private vaults for you and your family members to use.

Creating a Master Password That is Easy to Remember

When finally making the decision to get a password manager, it’s important that you take the time creating a master password that is both strong but also easy for your senior to remember. This is especially important since it acts as the key to enter their vault. 

Here are a few tips for creating a strong master password that an elderly relative will be able to remember.

Use a passphrase

A passphrase is when you use a phrase to create your password. In this case, it’ll be used to create a memorable master password. Have your elderly relative think of a phrase that they’ll be able to remember. It can be a phrase such as “I enjoy the snow” and use the phrase they think of to create their master password. 

The trick to creating a strong master password is making sure that the password contains a combination of letters, numbers and symbols. For example, using the phrase we came up with, we can swap out the letters with numbers to create something more obscure like “13nJ0ytH3$Now&.” This makes the passphrase much more difficult for a cybercriminal to guess. 

Use an acronym

Acronyms are another great way to create a master password your elderly relative will remember. The phrase they use here should be a bit longer since we’ll only be taking the first letter of each word when creating the master password. The phrase we’ll be using as an example is “I enjoy the snow because I love to sled.” To create the master password, we’ll take the first letter of each word used in the phrase while incorporating numbers and symbols wherever possible. Using this example, the master password could look something like “13+$BiLts!” 

These are just two tips on how your elderly relatives can go about creating a strong master password.

Why You Shouldn’t Get a Password Book for Seniors

A password book is an option that many seniors lean on to remember their passwords, but this can do more harm than good. Simply put, a password book is a physical journal with alphabetized pages so that people can write down usernames, passwords and website addresses. What many people don’t realize are the dangers that using a password book poses. Here are a few of the dangers of using a password book to store passwords.

Can be easily accessed by others

Using a password book is risky because it can get lost or stolen since you’ll have to take it with you wherever you go. In addition to the potential for it to get lost and your senior being forced to create new passwords for all of their accounts, it could also get into the wrong hands, which puts all their sensitive information and data at risk of being stolen. This can be especially dangerous if bank account logins are written in the password book, because not only is their sensitive data at risk, but so is their money. 

You still have to create your own passwords, which are typically easy to guess

Creating new passwords that are both strong and unique for different accounts is a huge challenge, especially when doing it without the help of a password manager. Typically, when people create their own passwords, they’re more likely to reuse passwords or use variations of the same passwords which makes their passwords easily guessable. Keeper’s 2022 US Password Practices Report reveals that 56% of respondents use the same password for multiple accounts. This is because many people rely on themselves to create and remember their own passwords, which makes them more susceptible to experiencing password attacks. 

When passwords are compromised, all Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and data are at risk. Elderly people should especially take extra cybersecurity precautions because they are more likely to be a cybercriminal’s target. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Report 2021 shows the age group targeted the most is senior citizens. There were a total of 92,371 victims aged 60+ in 2021, altogether suffering losses adding up to $1.68 billion. 

Help the elderly people in your life remember their passwords by getting them Keeper Password Manager, or by upgrading to Keeper’s Family Plan if you’re an existing customer so that your entire family is protected. Don’t let the seniors in your life be the next victims of a cyber attack – protect them today while simultaneously never letting them forget their passwords again.