Tip 3: Stop Reusing Passwords – Use a Password Manager Instead

Password reuse is one of the most common causes of account takeovers. The solution? A password manager that eliminates it entirely without making your life harder.

What to do:

• Choose a business-grade password manager (1Password, Bitwarden, and Keeper are solid options. Ask your IT provider what they recommend.)
• Have every employee use it to store all work account passwords.
• Enable the manager to generate random passwords for new accounts. No more variations of the same base password.

Common mistake: Most people are aware they shouldn’t reuse passwords and do it anyway because remembering dozens of unique ones isn’t realistic. So, they pick one “good” password and add a “1” or “!” at the end for different sites. Attackers know this pattern.

Once they have your base password from a data breach — and there are billions of credentials in circulation from past breaches — they try every common variation automatically.

A password manager makes reuse a non-issue because you never have to remember any of them. You only need to remember one.

How to know it’s done:

• Every business account has a unique password stored in a password manager
• No employee is manually creating or memorizing passwords for business accounts
• The master password for the manager follows Tip #1: long passphrase, used nowhere else