Password managers seemed like overkill until my laptop got stolen in Chicago

I used to keep everything in my head or a notes file, figured two factor was enough. Last month my bag got swiped at a coffee shop on Michigan Ave with my work laptop in it. The thief reset my email in under an hour because my password was reuse of an old account that showed up in a data leak. My coworker pushed me toward Bitwarden for months and I finally set it up the night before, so the vault was encrypted and my other logins were locked down. The credit monitoring I signed up for flagged the attempted account changes and I watched them fail one by one. Has anyone else had a close call that made you go all in on a tool you previously dismissed?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jennifer13d ago

Did the thief get anything else, or was the laptop enough?

the_rose13d ago

Used to figure losing the laptop was the worst thing that could happen, since everything else in the car was just clothes and a bag. But then I realized the charger and the little external drive were in the same bag, and that drive had every photo from the last five years on it. That changed my mind real quick, because the photos are the one thing I can't replace no matter how much money I throw at it. The laptop was a pain, sure, but losing the memories hit way harder once the shock wore off. Now I keep a backup drive at my mom's house, feels dumb but I get it now.