Helping parents with technology isn’t always an easy undertaking. Depending on how tech savvy your parents are, you might find helping them to be mildly irritating, or a downright apocalyptic experience. But even a few extra minutes spent sharing your valuable knowledge can make a big difference in helping your parents stay safer online and avoid common cyberthreats. And that’s especially true when it comes to helping them improve their password security with a password manager.
Of course, we know lots of tech-savvy seniors – but for those that aren’t, these tips can help.
1. Seniors are a prime target of cyber theft and scams.
Unfortunately, the 60+ crowd is an attractive target for cyber criminals. Reasons include increased medical and social security benefits, a lifetime’s worth of accumulated assets and retirement savings, and increased gullibility. Many senior citizens didn’t grow up around technology and are usually less cyber aware than younger generations. Cyber criminals and scam artists exploit their lack of cyber awareness to extract useful information or even steal money.
How a password manager helps: Be sure your parents avoid clicking any suspicious links in emails or text messages, in online advertisements, on social media, and on websites. They especially shouldn’t click a login link, but rather type the URL themselves into their browser. A password manager makes this easy by keeping links to all their online accounts in one safe vault where they can just launch a website when they want to log in.
2. End of life plans should include online accounts.
Talking about preparations for death can be distressing, but dealing with the details now can save a lot of time and stress for loved ones, especially amid the grieving process. With so many passwords to keep track of, often for important accounts like finances and healthcare, it can be difficult – if not impossible – for loved ones to gain access to accounts if passwords weren’t properly recorded.
How a password manager helps: With all passwords stored in a vault, your parents can ensure that you and other loved ones have the details you need to close accounts and carry out final wishes. A password manager like LastPass even has an “Emergency Access” feature that makes it easy for a loved one to request access to a vault (without needing to know the master password) when the time comes.
3. Save time and reduce stress when it comes to technology.
It can be hard for anyone to keep up with changing technology, and smartphones, laptops and tablets can be intimidating for people who don’t use them every day. Anything you can do to make navigating the web an easier experience will go a long way to helping your parents feel more comfortable with technology.
How a password manager helps: Your parents have enough to remember and worry about without the added stress of keeping track of passwords. A password manager helps them collect all passwords in one safe place, that they can access no matter where they happen to be or which device they happen to be using. By saving and filling in passwords, creating new passwords for them, and making it easy to launch sites to log in, a password manager can help ease their daily interactions with technology.
Have you set your parents up with LastPass? LastPass Families makes sharing passwords with family members easy.
