Episode 14: Let's Share Your Password!
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In this episode, we are going to talk about why you shouldn’t share your password with people.

This is one of those episodes I was hoping I wouldn’t have to write, but after watching a Tik Tok last night, I determined it was to create it and share it with the world in case someone really needed to hear it.  Please, under no circumstances should you share your password with anyone.  There are obviously a few exceptions to this rule, and we’ll get to them in a minute, but under general guidance, it’s always a bad idea to share your password.  Let’s talk about why passwords are so important and go over the reasons why it’s a bad idea to share your password.

First, a password serves as an identity for people.  Passwords authenticate a person.  They are used to gain access to a system or account.  In most cases, the only person you want accessing that system or account are verified users.  These accounts can contain sensitive data that shouldn’t be viewed by unauthorized users.  For example, your tax records, bank records, and private data should be kept private.  If you share your password, then the security put in place is invalidated.  Anyone with that password can access the information.  There are some exceptions to this of course.  You might want to share your password with a significant other or if you have children, you probably want to know their passwords in case they forget.  Overall though, unless you explicitly want someone to pretend to be you online, don’t share your password.

The next reason is a little more complicated.  For normal people around the world, having a password is a means to gain access to social media accounts, bank accounts, and websites where you may have an account registered.  If you analyze the types of accounts that folks use passwords on, the most sensitive information is usually financial information.  There’s other data like addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, but for the most part, your credit card or bank account information is what most people tend to try and keep secure.  But, in the business world, passwords are a little more powerful.  Having a password there usually means it’s a way on to a machine that then has company data.

Having a password to an asset that doesn’t belong to you is very important to keep private.  I know a lot of my podcast episodes make me sound like a paranoid person, but if someone else gets your password, they can basically impersonate you.  This might not sound too bad, but what if they send an email on your behalf or delete something that might get you in trouble.  Things can escalate even more if you have admin rights to a server.  Servers are used to store customer or company data.  This data is utilized to run the business.  Any compromise to this data could not only be catastrophic, but it could also mean loss of revenue.  When you have admin rights to a company server, you want to take extra precaution to make sure no one ever knows your password.  I’ve worked in some places where everyone shares an admin password. This is a HORRIBLE idea.  If someone does something malicious, whether intentional or on accident, there is no way of knowing who did it. If you share your password with someone, you open yourself up to a bunch of issues that you just shouldn’t open yourself up to.

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