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Password Reset: When Is It Needed?

It’s almost impossible to get by without a long list of passwords these days — it can be hard to keep track of them all. Losing a password is a small but incredibly frustrating part of modern life. It happens to all of us sooner or later.

The problem is in getting your account access back. It’s not always simple. 

password reset symbol

Performing a password reset

Performing a password reset is always an option in theory, but in reality, the password recovery process can be complicated and unreliable. It’s all too easy to get stuck in a password limbo.

If you’re locked out of an important online account, give us a call at 1-800-919-6373 or check out our online tech support pricing page.

In minutes, one of our handy nerds can unlock your important accounts by performing a safe and reliable password reset for you. We can help with PCs, Macs, web portals or software.

Need Online Help? Call A Nerd

Lock out of your account?

If you’re locked out of an account, we’ll get you back up and running with a new password in no time.

Nerds On Call Computer Repair is the best in-shop, onsite and online computer repair company in Sacramento, CA. We’ve served Sacramento County and surrounding areas since 2004! Nerds offers same day computer repair for both hardware and software issues on both Apple & PC laptops and desktops computers. Our Nerd computer technicians work hard to make your computer repair experience as quick & pleasant as possible. Visit our computer repair service Sacramento page or call us now at 1-800-919-6373 to set up a same day appointment.

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Questions nerds often hear about Password Reset

I lost my password! Do I have to set up a whole new account now?

No. The good news is, most online services provide a password retrieval option. If you’re not sure how to access password retrieval for any of your services, we can help.

I write all my passwords down in a little notebook. Is that secure?

Well, it’s better than writing them down in a note file on your computer! But no, it’s not really the best choice for securing your important passwords, especially passwords which would permit an intruder to access your banking or other financial services.

The safest option is either to set passwords you can easily remember or have us install a password manager on your system. Password managers protect your passwords behind strong encryption algorithms. It’s the best way to keep your data safe.

Why can’t I just use one password for all my accounts?

The reason this is a bad idea is simple. Hackers only need to find one of your passwords to access all your services. So if you use the same password for your Netflix account, your bank and your local library, a hacker only needs to find your password on your local library’s (probably fairly basic) server to have access to all your important data.

Ideally, you should have a unique password for every single service you use, and especially for important things like banking.

Can’t I just use a simple password, like my pet’s name? No-one will know that!

Most passwords aren’t cracked by a human. Instead, a hacker will use a computer to guess millions of passwords each second.

A seven-character password can be hacked by a computer in less than 5 seconds. An 8 character password requires about 5 hours. Often this single character difference alone is enough to stop everything but a truly determined hacker.

But here’s the thing. This same super powerful computer would require a decade to crack an 11 character code and two hundred years to crack a 12 character code.

The point is, simple, short words won’t cut it. To be safe, you need a password of 11 or more characters.

Related Services

Common Terms

Password Reset

A password reset is a process of changing or recovering a forgotten or lost password for a user account. This process is typically used when a user is unable to recall their current password or when a password needs to be reset for security reasons.

Recovery Email

A recovery email is an additional email address that is registered to a user account as a backup. It is used to recover access to an account in case the user forgets their password or if their account is compromised.