What is Password Reuse?

 Password reuse is a person’s tendency to use the same password across different online services. Password reuse is a problem where people try to remember multiple passwords for everything they interact with regularly, using the same password on multiple systems, tiers of applications, and social media sites.

The Risks

Once one account is compromised, all the accounts that share that password become compromised. The more a password is reused, the more opportunities there are for that password to be compromised or stolen.

If a website is compromised (think Medibank, Optus), threat actors will use the passwords and login information on other websites and services to gain access to other accounts using the same passwords.

The risk increases if you use your email address as the site login. There are services available online that allow a threat actor to input an email address. The site will return a list of other services using the same email address.

For example, in the image below, you can see the results returned after checking my personal email address. You can see that I am using the same email address on many sites. If I used the same password on those sites and a single site was compromised, all would be at risk.