You know you’re guilty of it: using the same password for everything. Believe me, I understand how annoying it is to try and remember all those passwords; and if you’re using the same password for sites that don’t share sensitive information, like a login to a news feed you like to read, then it’s generally okay.

HOWEVER, the ONE password you want to keep unique is your e-mail password.

If an e-commerce site you’ve registered at or bought from gets hacked – and you’ve used the SAME password you usually use for everything to register at the site – you can pretty much bet hackers are going to gain access to your in-box. They’ll have your e-mail and your password to the e-commerce site and will use that to hack in. From there, they’ll have fertile ground for getting all your data and other passwords.