Professional organizer Monica Ricci was recently on Facebook when one of her friends supposedly initiated a chat session with her. Being a smart woman, she immediately suspected that it wasn’t really her friend, and her suspicions were confirmed when her “friend” said she was stuck in London and needed her to wire her some money. She telephoned her real friend, who then logged into her Facebook account and began using the chat feature herself. As soon as the hacker realized he or she had been caught, the conversation ended abruptly.

Apparently, this is not an isolated incident, as blogger Alfred Esa reported having a similar experience. He subsequently posted some excellent tips for Protecting Your Privacy in Facebook, and I’d like to mention one in particular: Use a Password That’s Unique to Facebook. I know lots of people who use the same password for all or most of their accounts, because it’s easy to remember. Very often it’s a word that could be guessed by anyone who knows a little bit about them, such as the name of a pet or child. If you do this, you are putting your accounts at risk!

I understand that it can be difficult to remember and type a password like #X6ByGC$%uwu. And when you consider the number of accounts most of us have, you probably think it’s impossible to come up with a different, strong, password for each site, and to remember them, unless you have some kind of superpowers!

Other than guessing passwords, one way that hackers steal them is by using spyware that records your keystrokes when you log into a website. (That’s a good reason to use anti-spyware software, but that’s a topic for another day.)

If you’re thinking it’s time to cancel your Internet service, relax; there are other options. Last year I bought an amazing piece of software called Roboform that allows me to generate random passwords for each website I use, and store them securely in a bookmark-style toolbar. Now, when I want to log into a particular site, I simply click on it in my Roboform toolbar, and it takes my browser to the log-in page and enters my user name and password for me. I don’t have to think of passwords, remember which password goes with which site, or worry about keystroke loggers! For an added measure of security, I can password protect my Roboform toolbar, so if someone else uses my computer, I don’t have to worry about them accessing my accounts. In terms of keeping my passwords organized, saving time looking them up and typing them in, and general peace of mind, it’s one of the best investments I’ve ever made! There’s even a free version that’s fully functional for 30 days, which you can continue using after the trial period if you don’t have a large number of passwords. Maybe you should give Roboform a try!