Last year was an especially big year for data breaches. Popular chain restaurants, Facebook, Toyota and Capital One were all impacted. Tap or click here to see the biggest data breaches of 2019. With so many sites out there putting your credentials at risk, you really need tools to protect yourself. That’s where our sponsor, RoboForm, comes in. With just the click of a button, you can easily generate strong, random and unique passwords whenever you need them. Unfortunately, too many companies and brands are still not following the best practices when it comes to prompting users to create passwords. Until they do, it’s up to each of us to protect ourselves. Save 50% on RoboForm Everywhere and manage your passwords with ease and security. Here are just a few of the companies that many of us rely on that could be doing a better job when it comes to protecting their user’s information.

Southwest

If you enroll in Southwest’s Rapid Rewards program and want to use a really long password, you can’t. Southwest caps the length of passwords at just 16 characters, which is barely enough to create a strong one. In its Terms and Conditions, Southwest lets users know it’s not responsible for unauthorized access to accounts and will not replace stolen points or awards.

Walmart

Considering how huge a company like Walmart is, you’d think it would have high standards when it comes to users and their account credentials. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. When you go to walmart.com to create an account, the site allows you to choose a password with as few characters as seven. That’s just not strong enough these days. Even more surprising is how ridiculously simple your password can be. The system even allows something as generic as “qwerty1” to be used.

Facebook

OK, this one might not surprise you since the site has a long history of privacy concerns. Of course, we’re talking about Facebook. Facebook’s minimum password length is six characters. That’s right — Despite having spent months in the news following highly publicized data breaches, it still allows users to have six-character passwords. If you use a password management tool like RoboForm to generate and store a proper password, you won’t need to settle for a bad one just because it’s easy to remember at 1 a.m.

Most streaming services

Certain streaming services are the worst offenders when it comes to password requirements. In fact, Sling and Netflix are about as bad as it gets. Both sites have a password character minimum of four. Yes, four. That’s ridiculous! Other streaming services aren’t much better. Here’s a list of streaming services and their password requirements: Tip within a tip: If you’re looking to share your streaming service passwords with a member of your household, use RoboForm’s secure Sharing feature. That way, you can pick a strong password instead of a bad one you can shout across the living room.

Vietnam Airlines

Having a minimum requirement of six characters for a password is a recipe for disaster. Vietnam Airlines takes it a step further by restricting password length to a maximum of eight! Just because popular sites and services allow you to choose poor passwords doesn’t mean that you should. The great thing about RoboForm is it makes it easy for you to create strong passwords, allowing you to use these services securely. Save 50% on RoboForm Everywhere and manage your passwords with ease and security.