Need help with passwords and whatnot

So an hour ago I ended up checking my email when I noticed that I was charged $59.99 for a game that I didn't buy; the game in question is FIFA 15. I'm not sure how you all would react to this but at the moment I'm a tiny bit freaked out. A year or two ago I posted on these forums that my bank account was almost drained by some person right before my eyes. Luckily I got my money back and began to vigilantly keep an eye on my money to make sure I won't get blindsided by stuff like that again.

Well, now it seems to be happening in a more manageable scale with my credit card. I called Chase and told them about the charge and they told me that they couldn't dispute the charge until it went through (charges are still pending), so here I am, wide awake at 2 a.m.

I've noticed attempts to get into my email (hotmail) account from other countries (unsuccessfully) and I ended up having to change my password, which is kind of hard for me to do since I don't write them down. Currently I received an email that someone tried to access my Cryptic account from another computer and I haven't logged on to that thing in months. Anyone out there know of a reliable free program or something that can randomly generate passwords and stuff? Also, if you guys have any further advice on what I can do to keep my shit secure I'd really appreciate it.

For the record, I've changed my passwords and regularly scan my PC so I feel like I'm backed up against a wall on what I can do to keep my things safer.

I use LastPass for my password managing needs. It's free and you can have it as an addon for Firefox or Chrome. It allows you to generate unique passwords and save them for later use.

And if your email has Two-Factor Authentication, you should really turn that on. It makes it much harder for people from other machines to get into it.

An easy way to get a good password is to use the initials of a long sentence or phrase which you can easily remember. Maybe scan your computer for viruses, too.

Thanks guys, I'm in the process of installing last pass, just finished scanning my PC for the 3rd time this week (nothing found so I guess that's good) and am reading through a response on the EA Origins forum on how to better secure my account. I don't know if Origins has 2-factor authentication for online purchases. I barely use origins so they probably do and I wouldn't know.

I don't know how that application saves your passwords but I do know that if you use that save password functionality on Firefox and Chrome it saves the url and password in a text file that can easily be accessed from your computer.

Ever thought of using you keyboard layout as a pattern for your password? As a basic example (letters only), three keys per line: werdfgvbn

Look at your keyboard for each key I typed there. There is a pattern there that can make it easy to type. Muscle memory is the key for that style.

@rebel_scum: LastPass manages your passwords for you by storing an encrypted file within its servers. As far as I know, all the encrypting and decrypting is done locally on your own computer and not their servers. So even they don't have access to your passwords. It's not just a plain text file that is saved.

Ah, here's something from their website:

All encryption/decryption occurs on your computer, not on our servers. This means that your sensitive data does not travel over the Internet and it never touches our servers, only the encrypted data does.

Your encryption key is created from your email address and Master Password. Your Master Password is never sent to LastPass, only a one-way hash of your password when authenticating, which means that the components that make up your key remain local. This is why it is very important to remember your LastPass Master Password; we do not know it and without it your encrypted data is meaningless. LastPass also offers advanced security options that let you add more layers of protection.

I wasn't talking about exporting the password list as a plain text file if that's what you meant by save functionality. For the record, I think that LastPass is a way better alternative to making up your own passwords simply because it is patternless. Just make sure that you have a strong master password along with 2-Factor Authentication turned on though.

There are of course other equally viable password managers if you don't find LastPass to your liking.

..and even with LastPass, for internet-safety's sake, make that universal LastPass password humongous and brute-force unbreakable. Make it your favorite quote, translate it to Icelandic, then to Japanese, then back to English, with Bing translate or something dumb, then put it in backwards with random numbers between words. At least then they'd have to work for it. Well unless they have a keylogger on your computer or something, in which case, burn everything and live off the grid.

Incidentally, my EA Origin account is the only thing that I've ever had stolen from me on the internet; which is funny since I detest EA and Origin so I can just sum it up to more reasons not to ever use anything EA or Origin-related. Which might have to change since the new Dragon Age might be fun and if so, I'll have to bend over and take it once more.

Just gonna leave this one here.