🔐

Secure Your Accounts

10 minute read

Lock down your digital life in 30 minutes. We'll walk you through every step.

⏱️ Time needed: About 30 minutes
📱 What you’ll need: Your phone and access to your email
💪 Difficulty: Easy — just follow the steps

When you finish this guide, your accounts will be more secure than 95% of people online. Let’s do this.

Step 1: Lock Down Your Email (10 minutes)

Why email first? Your email is the master key to everything. If someone gets into your email, they can reset passwords on all your other accounts — bank, Amazon, everything.

Change Your Email Password

  1. Go to your email provider’s security settings:
  2. Create a new password that is:
    • At least 12 characters — longer is stronger
    • Not used anywhere else — unique to this account
    • Not based on personal info — no birthdays, pet names, addresses

Easy trick: Use a sentence as your password.

  • ✅ “I walked my dog at 6am today!” (strong)
  • ✅ “CoffeeIsMyFavoriteAt7am” (strong)
  • ❌ “Fluffy2019” (weak — personal info)
  • ❌ “Password123” (extremely weak)

Turn On Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

This is the most important thing you can do. With 2FA, even if someone steals your password, they still can’t log in without your phone.

How to turn it on:

Email Provider Where to Find It
Gmail Security → 2-Step Verification → Get started
Outlook Security → Advanced security → Two-step verification
Yahoo Account security → Two-step verification
Apple Settings → [Your name] → Password & Security → Two-Factor Authentication

When asked, choose “text message” or “authenticator app”. Text message is perfectly fine for most people.

Check for Suspicious Activity

Look for logins you don’t recognize:

  • Gmail: Security → Your devices
  • Outlook: Security → View my sign-in activity
  • Yahoo: Recent activity

See something weird? A location you’ve never been, or a device you don’t own? Change your password immediately and log out of all sessions.

Step 2: Check If Your Info Has Been Leaked (5 minutes)

Data breaches happen all the time. Companies you’ve used may have been hacked, and your email and password might be floating around the internet.

Use “Have I Been Pwned”

  1. Go to haveibeenpwned.com
  2. Type in your email address
  3. It tells you if your info appeared in any known breaches

If you show up (most people do):

  • Change your password on those specific sites
  • If you used the same password anywhere else, change those too
  • Don’t panic — just take action

Step 3: Secure Your Important Accounts (10 minutes)

Focus on accounts that have:

  • 💰 Your money: Bank, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App
  • 🪪 Your identity: Government sites, health insurance, tax software
  • 📦 Your stuff: Amazon, Apple/Google account

For Each Important Account:

  1. Change to a unique password — different from all your other passwords
  2. Turn on 2FA — usually found in Settings → Security or Account Security
  3. Review connected apps — remove any you don’t recognize or use

Can’t Remember All These Passwords?

Use a password manager. It remembers your passwords so you don’t have to.

Free options:

  • Bitwarden — Free, works on everything
  • Apple Keychain — Built into iPhones and Macs
  • Google Password Manager — Built into Chrome and Android

You just remember one master password, and the manager handles everything else.

Step 4: Secure Your Phone (5 minutes)

Your phone knows everything about you. Let’s lock it down.

Set a Strong Screen Lock

  • Use 6 digits minimum (not 1234, not your birthday)
  • Or use face/fingerprint if your phone supports it
  • Set it to lock automatically after 30 seconds to 1 minute

Update Your Phone

  • iPhone: Settings → General → Software Update
  • Android: Settings → System → Software Update (varies by manufacturer)

Install any waiting updates. They often include security fixes.

Check App Permissions

See what apps have access to your stuff:

  • iPhone: Settings → Privacy & Security
  • Android: Settings → Privacy → Permission manager

Remove access from apps that don’t need it. That flashlight app doesn’t need your contacts.

Find My Phone

Make sure this is turned on:

  • iPhone: Settings → [Your name] → Find My → Find My iPhone
  • Android: Settings → Security → Find My Device

If your phone is ever lost or stolen, you can locate it, lock it, or erase it remotely.

✅ You Did It!

Your accounts are now significantly more secure than the average person’s. Here’s what you accomplished:

  • 🔒 Secured your email with a strong password and 2FA
  • 🔍 Checked if your info was in any data breaches
  • 🏦 Protected your important accounts
  • 📱 Locked down your phone

Keep It Going

Daily habits:

  • Be suspicious of unexpected calls, texts, and emails about your accounts
  • Don’t click links in messages — go to websites directly

Monthly habits:

  • Glance at your bank statements for anything unusual
  • Install updates when they appear

If something feels wrong:

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