Sharing passwords with family members is standard practice in today's world of digital entertainment. It's much cheaper to share these services than each family member paying for their own subscription.
Usually, families share passwords via chat or email—unknowingly exposing everyone to cyber-attacks!
TeamPassword is a secure password manager designed to share credentials securely. With robust security features and data encryption, TeamPassword makes sharing passwords with family is safe and easy! Sign up for a 14-day free trial and secure your family's credentials with TeamPassword!
Why Share Passwords With Family?
There are a couple of reasons why family members share passwords:
- To share digital services—like Netflix, HBO Max, etc.
- For emergency purposes - provide access to important accounts and information when a family member is incapacitated or passes away.
- Parental supervision
Sharing Digital Services
The primary reason family members share passwords is to share access to entertainment services, like Apple TV, Netflix, and others. Many services offer family plans or allow you to assign more than one user, so check this before you start sharing passwords—it might not be necessary!
For Emergency Purposes
Families also share passwords in case of emergencies. A family member might need to access financial or insurance information, an email, social media, and other accounts.
Parental Supervision
The beauty of the internet is that you're free to roam anywhere, anytime. This freedom is great for adults but troublesome for children! Kids also like to download apps, which parents have trouble monitoring!
Kids often create weak passwords, making them easy targets for criminals. While there is little money or data criminals can steal from a youngster, criminals can use their children as a conduit to parents and other family members.
To keep track of their kids, parents share passwords to accounts and devices. With a deluge of their own passwords, parents can get overwhelmed remembering or track credentials for their children too!
What Kind of Passwords Do You Need to Share With Family?
Here are some examples of the kinds of passwords families share:
- Streaming services
- Subscription services
- Wireless passwords
- Shared bank accounts
- Email, cloud storage, and social media accounts - in case of an emergency
The Dangers of Sharing Passwords with Family
Sharing passwords with family can be dangerous. We often follow strict protocols for sharing passwords with coworkers at work, but we're more relaxed at home—borderline reckless in some cases!
Sharing passwords through email, chat, spreadsheets, or digital notes is common amongst families.
The problem with these solutions is that they're easy to breach. Once a hacker steals your credentials, they can deploy spear-phishing attacks to scam family members into providing further information, like credit cards, bank account logins, and more!
The other problem is that every time someone resets a password, they have to remember to share the new credentials. Conversely, family members don't reset passwords enough or choose weak passwords for everyone to remember creating serious cybersecurity vulnerabilities!
Here are some common password-related cyberattacks which could result from credential sharing, reusing passwords, and creating weak passwords.
Spear-Phishing Attacks
Unlike regular phishing, which casts a wide net, spear-phishing attacks are more targeted. Using personal information, criminals can personalize spoofed communication to the victim, making it look more authentic.
Spear-phishing attacks are highly effective, often fooling cybersecurity-educated government and corporate employees, making easy victims of kids and teenagers!
If attackers manage to breach a family member's device, they can explore shared folders, chat logs, digital notes, and more to find the family's shared passwords.
Credential Stuffing Attacks
Data breaches have increased significantly since the start of 2020. Criminals often steal massive personal data, including user credentials with emails and passwords.
Criminals will use those same credentials in an attempt to hack other popular sites and platforms. For example, if you use the same credentials for Facebook, Netflix, HBO Max, and your utility services, hackers only need to steal credentials from one provider to have access to all of your accounts!
Brute Force Attacks
A brute force attack is where criminals try multiple password combinations to hack a user's account. This method is most effective for weak passwords—a common family password sin!
Some examples of weak passwords that hackers know to use:
- Any password using the word password, including P@$$w0rd
- Family, friends, or pet names (these are easy to find on social media)
- Using the platform's name—netflix1234 or n3tfl1x1234 are equally poor!
- Social security or other identification numbers
- Phone numbers
- Street names & addresses
Why Families Need Strong Passwords
Criminals are always going for the low-hanging fruit. Why spend months or years hacking a corporate entity with multiple layers of security when you can hack the Jones family in a day and steal a quick $1,000 (maybe more).
Criminals may also use family members to infiltrate government or corporate organizations.
For example, if a family member works for the government, it's much easier to hack that individual via a family member than going directly through governmental cybersecurity.
If families share Google Account or iCloud passwords, this could be highly problematic should hackers steal them. These types of accounts allow criminals to conduct identity theft scams, resulting in massive financial losses.
Luckily, there's a safe way to share passwords and prevent these types of attacks and fallouts.
Best Ways to Share Passwords With Family
The best way for families to share passwords is through a secure password manager. TeamPassword is a robust password manager designed to make credential sharing safe and easy.
Is TeamPassword Safe for Families?
TeamPassword is a secure hosting provider with multiple security accreditations. Many businesses trust our password manager to keep company assets safe, and we can do the same for families.
Our security accreditations include:
- ISO 27001
- SOC 1 and SOC 2/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402
- PCI Level 1
- FISMA Moderate
- Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)
TeamPassword follows strict security protocols when deploying updates and complete regular vulnerability sweeps for viruses and malware.
When you save a new password, the data is hashed, salted, and encrypted locally on your computer before uploading to the TeamPassword servers. This method ensures no one can intercept or view your passwords—not even TeamPassword staff!
We store your passwords using AES-256 bit encryption, trusted by US government agencies and multinational corporations globally.
So yes, your family's passwords are safe with TeamPassword!
How to Share Passwords with Family via TeamPassword
Each family member gets a TeamPassword account login. Make sure everyone uses a secure password and enables the password manager's two-factor authentication (2FA).
Next, you can create groups for sharing. You may have separate groups, depending on who needs access. For example, only mom and dad need access to the family's shared bank account, while everyone needs access to shared streaming services. Parents might also want to create shared groups for each child's personal accounts—Google, social media, iCloud, etc.
With TeamPassword, you can also share temporary access for guests. If a friend or relative comes to stay, you can create a group to share your WiFi password and streaming services. When they leave, simply remove them from TeamPassword, and they no longer have access.
How Family Members Login Using TeamPassword
Family members can log in using TeamPassword's browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) or the TeamPassword app (iOS & Android).
Family members can log into accounts via TeamPassword's browser extensions with just a few clicks—no need to copy/paste or remember passwords.
Say Goodbye to Weak Passwords
TeamPassword's built-in password generator allows you to create strong, unique credentials for every account—no more netflixp@$$w0rd123.
With TeamPassword, your passwords look more like this: mD2$vR6~gA9#oE6. A secure, random character string that's impossible to guess. You never have to worry about creating memorable passwords because TeamPassword remembers them for you!
TeamPassword's password generator lets you create passwords from 12-32 characters with uppercase, lowercase, letters, and symbols.
With secure passwords for every account, you can mitigate many cybersecurity vulnerabilities—making your family and home safer!
Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)
Each family member can set up 2FA to prevent hackers from breaching their TeamPassword account, even if someone steals their TeamPassword credentials.
TeamPassword uses Google Authenticator as a second authentication method, available on iOS and Android devices.
Activity Monitoring and Email Notifications
TeamPassword's activity log and email notifications make it easy for parents to monitor their kids. Parents can check activity logs to see which credentials kids have viewed, logged in, whether they've shared logins, changed, or deleted passwords.
TeamPassword also allows you to set up email notifications for instant alerts to all of these actions.
Get a Free 14-Day TeamPassword Trial
Stop using weak passwords or sharing credentials via spreadsheets, notes, and chat. Secure your family's digital assets with a robust password management solution.
Sign up for a free TeamPassword trial to test sharing passwords with family through our secure password manager.
