4 fast, easy ways to strengthen your security on World Password Day

Many arbitrary holidays litter our calendars (ahem, Tin Can Day), but World Password Day is one fully supported by the PCWorld staff. We’re all for ditching weak passwords — especially when strengthening your security takes only a little effort.

Follow these four easy suggestions and you’ll thank yourself for years to come. Not only will data breaches and hackers stop being immediate threats, but you won’t have to scramble to remember a collection of user name and passwords. That’s especially true if you opt for a newer form of account protection that’s simpler to use than passwords.

Trust us, you want to safeguard yourself. Data breaches are common these days, and as Bitwarden’s latest survey results indicate, a concerning number of people still reuse passwords (31 percent in the U.S. do so for 11 to 20+ sites!). And with so many data leaks, it’s getting easier and easier for hackers to not just know your passwords, but figure out the personal info you might use in a password — another prevailing bad habit (42 percent in the U.S.). Yikes.

Get a password manager

The best password manager

Dashlane

Read our review

Best Prices Today: $4.99 at Dashlane

Password managers make better account security so easy. You only have to memorize one strong password to safeguard nearly all your other login info. (Here’s how to come up with a good master password.)

You shouldn’t have an issue finding a password manager that suits you, either — it’s perfectly normal to have reservations about them, but there are so many options out there. Want something that integrates seamlessly with your phone or browser? Google, Apple, and Firefox’s password managers are basic but solid. Hate the idea of all your passwords sitting in the cloud? Try KeePass or one of its variants. Need support for advanced two-factor authentication methods, like a YubiKey? Many paid services include it. Password managers now also generally support passkeys, a simpler yet more secure method of account protection.

Paying for a good solution isn’t always necessary either, as you’ll see when going over our lists of the best paid password managers and the best free password managers. The kinds of features that unlock when paying for services are helpful indeed, especially if you’re using multiple devices or want to secure passwords for multiple people, but they’re not absolutely vital otherwise. That said, our go-to solution — Dashlane — makes managing passwords dead simple and only costs $33 per year, or $2.75 per month. It’s money well spent for the added security (and the extra polish).

And don’t worry if you try one service and don’t like it. Exporting and importing password databases is simple.

Use strong, unique passwords for everything

Terahash / Twitter

Terahash / Twitter

            <div class="scrim" style="background-color: #fff" aria-hidden="true"></div>
    </div></figure><p class="imageCredit">Terahash / Twitter</p></div>

Even websites that barely register in your memory deserve a strong, unique password. If you’ve left behind traces of personal information — or financial information, like stored credit card info — unauthorized access to your account could lead to future headaches.

Normally, remembering a strong, random, and unique password for every place you visit on the internet would be a pain in the rear. Everything requires a login these days. But with a password manager (which of course you’ve just set up!), you no longer have that responsibility. So long as you have the browser extension (or app installed on your phone), you can let it choose a password for you. Just tell it how many characters in length and what mix of them. (Security experts currently recommend 24 characters in length, randomly generated with numbers, letters, and special characters; you can also opt for a similarly long passphrase for things you need to manually type.) The fun part is that because you don’t have to memorize each password yourself, long and complex strings aren’t a hassle.

If you want to really level up your login security, you can also use strong, unique user names, too. With a password manager tracking everything, being randominternetuser13960 on one site, ithurtstomove4582 on another, and pizzacoma2259 on a third is a cinch. Have to use an email address for your login? Gmail and some other email providers let you create aliases by adding a plus sign (+) and phrase after your account name. So for example, you could use emailaddress+likesbooks@gmail.com to distinguish that particular site. Or better yet, you can wholesale upgrade to email masks for true anonymity.

Enable two-factor authentication, too