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A recent NordPass study found that the average person has 100 passwords to remember. That’s entirely too many passwords. We have some thoughts on how to craft strong passwords and why you should consider a password manager, but a stronger move would be to identify your zombie accounts and clear them out. Here’s why.
What Is a Zombie Account?
A zombie account is an online account you no longer use but still exists. Maybe you ordered a pair of shoes from a site seven years ago and had to register to use it—but you’ve never ordered anything since. That site has your email and a password. If you didn’t use guest checkout, it has your credit card information and your address.
Now let’s say this site gets hacked or has its data leaked somehow. Suddenly, bad actors have a lot of your information. Presumably it’s been long enough such that your credit card information is out of date, but the bad actors probably still had that information for a length of time when it was useful. Your contact information is useful too. On top of that, bad actors will try your email and password combination elsewhere, so if you’re reusing a password, these bad actors can probably get into your other accounts. All that from an account you no longer even use.
… Can I Tell If My Information Has Been Compromised?
Go ahead and put your email address into haveibeenpwned and see what pops up. It’ll look for your address from publicly acknowledged leaks, but it is by no means comprehensive.
How Do I Prevent This?
You can do a few things. One, don’t create useless accounts in the first place. Two, delete accounts if you think they won’t be useful anymore.
Let’s talk about the first option. When possible, use guest checkout. Don’t create an account if you don’t have to. And if you really must make an account, use a throwaway email you don’t care about. That’s what millennials have been doing with their old Hotmail accounts for years.
How Do I Delete Zombie Accounts?
First, you’d better track down all your old accounts. This might be tricky. One thing you might do is delete them as they contact your email with newsletters, updated terms and conditions, and other stuff like that. You might also search through your email to see if you’ve saved things like account activation emails. If you’re really concerned about accounts used for online purchases, you can look through your old credit card statements to see about online accounts. If you’re unsure if you have an account with a website, you can always type in your email and select the password-recovery option—to see if they even have an account with your email attached.
Once you have this list, instead of searching through settings to see about deleting your account, check this directory called JustDeleteMe. It’s a service that shows you what accounts you can delete, which do something silly like just reset or “deactivate” without actually deleting anything, and which sites and services don’t actually let you delete your account. Animal Crossing Community, for example, makes it impossible to delete your account. In that case, your only real option is to write a polite email begging to be deleted. Or write a letter to your MP saying there oughta be a law.
The Bottom Line
With every account you remove, you take away a possible avenue of attack bad actors might use to gain your information or access to more accounts. So do yourself a favour and make it harder on them. Delete your zombie accounts.
