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hey guys and community,

I’m getting older and so do you (at least I would expect so) every day.

Watching my Dad (Sept is his 83rd birhday) fighting with his ibm retirement account which was outsourced and mfa-ed and looking at my self how often I have to reset pwds in order to get back into my accounts (which were forced upon us ever since - without no banking, shopping, yade yade what would we do)

I was wondering if someone has found an easy to manage way to fight the “f…mfaway - I want to do something” (aka mfa).

I am near my mid 50s but struggle with mfa more and more - my work phone is full of otps for accounts - just in case they need it (and don’t tell me your users are all sooo fit.)
When i want to use my ones I usually f… up by picking the wrong otp. furthermore some of the otps registered to not even have their names attached to it, so I can only choose by ordered list or last added…

How is your experience with that and how do you handle it (guess you host a lot of “parents” accounts, too).

PWManagers (shared) doesn’t work with an old man writing down pw in his cellar (which is not my concern - he is even better at pwmanaging than me in the meantime - having all his stuff saved away - but then again sometimes it comes to a mess…)
Even I do not update stuff immediately - next day I pay since I reset … maybe document… etc..

What is my concern:?

How is he supposed to keep up with all the changes - and if you think a bit further - how are we supposed to keep up with the changes - although we are in IT (btw. dad was too)

Grateful, for any insights and suggestions that could make life easier for seniors and upcoming seniors. ( you know you don’t learn that easy from a certain age - think about it before posting)

I have a strong ‘no’ against body part identification (fingers, eyes, as…s, toes, whatever).

btw, i am sure there are more things attached to aging in IT - any thoughts?

Cheers, Annette

10 Spice ups
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The best I can do is to say use a password manager like bitwarden with a strong and long (more than 30 characters encryption key. write it down. you are protecting against online attack not physical, and if you loose it your really screwed.

Then store you credentials in bitwarden (and use it to generate unique passwords for each service.) Including your MFA OTP codes. Bitwarden will do the leg work for you and remember your credentials and be able to generate the mfa login codes needed without having that never ending list of entries in a phone authenticator app (which usually dies with the phone)

For example

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If you are worried about online password managers, then use and offline one like keepass. it can also do OTP in most cases. just make sure you don’t lose your local copy.

6 Spice ups
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I second this. Also note, you need a paid subscription to use TOTP in Bitwarden. Was saddened to find this out.

One other suggestion which is also insane, if you had a smartwatch, you can get the codes all sent via SMS and that way you know exactly what you are logging into when you do it. Downside is that your text message storage will be flooded with tons of out of date codes by tons of different organizations. Much easier to find what you are looking for in the heat of the moment though and you won’t need to keep pulling out your phone.

2 Spice ups
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I literally use this daily. I didn’t know it was insane though… :slightly_smiling_face: The codes are typically sent from the same source, so each organization is a different conversation. Easy enough to ignore and takes little of the phone’s storage. You could delete the SMS conversations occasionally if you wanted to clear those out though…

As I have gotten older myself, a larger smartwatch screen so that the text is easier to read is helpful.

3 Spice ups
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Yeah, a password manager is the way to go. It’s the only way to keep up. Fortunately, they can be pretty easy to learn. I like 1Password for that reason, the UI is really clean.

4 Spice ups
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My latest issue is working with family members who are either older or mentally inept. They install apps that require passwords and credit cards (think “DoorDash”). And then are surprised when the app is hacked and miscellaneous charges show up. I’ve become my family’s SOC manager.

3 Spice ups
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I use Keepass for not often used passwords, it works well for me. I also have a (shh) notebook with some really obscure stuff in it that is rarely required. Of course I have DUO and Google Authenticator, and Microsoft Authenticator and Salesforce authenticator on my phone because most vendors won’t let you pick your own authenticator and just have ONE TO DEAL WITH…

Oh and will be 59 this year…cannot WAIT to retire, though I will probably have to go part time for a couple of years to keep medical insurance until I can jump on Medicare…we’ll see what happens. I know my employer will allow me to do that…I think.

2 Spice ups
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Not exactly on subject, but I remember my husband’s grandmother saying she wanted us to pump gas for her. She said, “Reading the screen, pressing this button, insert here, typing that, … this is your world … it isn’t mine anymore.” Like the world had changed so much that she couldn’t keep up. It gave me a new perspective of how it can feel for people who grew up without all this technology around. It’s hard to adjust and function.

At the same time, my grandfather had just wiped his computer and reinstalled Windows, so … people are different.

4 Spice ups
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There really is only one answer to this, and that is as others have said - a password manager.

My recommendation is Keeper, which will substitute for ALL authenticators, so you can delete all the others entirely.

Also, setting up a small family unit with shared folders will allow you to assist with login/password management issues.

If you set it up for him, which is the difficult part, using it is actually quite easy and something he should be able to pick up relatively quickly. But you have to convince him to ditch his little black book of passwords, which are probably not that many and used for many different accounts. Very bad practice.

Good luck.

M

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If you stick with OTP like google authenticator, you can rename those by sliding them to the right. Conversely, sliding them to the left will delete (this is on an Android).