As Hawaiians ran for cover and said their “last” goodbyes after the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency accidentally pushed out an incoming ballistic missile alert, Hawaii Governor David Ige struggled to remember his Twitter password so he could send out a false alarm message.
The mobile phone alert “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL,” activated when an agency employee hit the wrong button during a drill, sent citizens into a panic for nearly 20 minutes until the state's social media accounts issued a false alarm – it took nearly 40 minutes for the agency to put out a mobile phone alert.
“I have to confess that I don't know my Twitter account log-ons and the passwords, so certainly that's one of the changes that I've made. I've been putting that on my phone so that we can access the social media directly,” Ige admitted Monday, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “I was in the process of making calls to the leadership team both in Hawaii Emergency Management as well as others.”
Noting that remembering, and forgetting passwords is commonplace, Steve Schult, senior director of product management at LastPass, who recommends organizations use password managers and other tools, stresses, "The truth is, it's hard to remember passwords. And, forgetting a password can have negative effects, both in the workplace and in daily life, and can even lead to poor password habits in the future – whether it's improper password keeping or creating weak passwords that are easier to remember."
