One of the earliest parts of our conversations with new clients is the question, “Can you send me over your login details to your hosting, domain name registration and website?”  

But before we can start to tell them how to share the details with us safely, the complete login details often land in our email inbox, helpfully labelled “Here are our passwords”.

And we shudder.

What is wrong with this picture?

Let’s take a step back and share the true story of one of our tradie clients.

Not too long ago, he was with a dodgy hosting company and hadn’t been keeping his website tech stuff updated.

This was a ticking time bomb, and before too long, the hackers had struck and had not just gotten into his website but had made their way into his hosting (and his emails).

One of the first things that many hackers do is search for the terms “Username” or “Password” in emails.  

These hackers found a treasure trove of login details that the tradie had shared via email with his virtual assistant, and merrily took over his Facebook/Instagram accounts, and had a field day shopping up a storm on many of his accounts. The tradie is still unravelling the financial damage months later.

So, sending usernames and emails via regular emails is bad! Very bad! As bad as you having enjoyed half of your pizza before realizing that it wasn’t pesto but mould on your mozzarella sort of bad.

But you still need to get your password and login details over to your virtual assistant, web designer, marketer, or IT guru.

What do you do?