How to Get Your Passwords in Order, and Keep It That Way [Part 5 of 5]

This is the final part in our 5-part series. You are on the last leg of the journey, and just a few steps away from drastically improving your overall cybersecurity. We wanted to thank you in advance for going through these steps, and if you are finding this article for the first time, be sure to click on #Password Guide at the bottom of this page to see all of the other posts in the series.

Here’s where we are at:

1. Create a few strong master passwords
2. Choose a primary email for your accounts
3. Secure that email with a new, strong password
4. Choose a Multi-factor authentication app
5. Set up Multi-factor authentication on your primary email
6. Select and set up a password manager
7. Update every account, secure it, and log it in the password manager
8. Delete old passwords stored in your browser (or in Word documents, spreadsheets, sticky notes, or anywhere else)
9. Maintain the course!

Remove Old Passwords from Your Web Browser and Disable Your Browser from Storing Passwords

We hope that with all of your passwords safely stored in a new password manager, you are feeling like you have control over your online security. 

Now, you just need to tell your web browser to stop storing your passwords, since you only want your password manager doing that for you.

Why Shouldn’t We Trust Our Web Browser to Save Passwords?
While it’s a nice convenience to have your web browser log you into your accounts for you, there are some pretty hefty risks. It’s pretty easy for cybercriminals to hijack your browsing session with malware, which can give them access to passwords stored in the browser. With the password managers we suggested, it’s much more difficult as all of the data is encrypted and locked down.

Now that you have a password manager set up, you should remove any old information your web browser might have stored and disable its ability to store passwords moving forward.

Removing Passwords from Google Chrome:
Open Google Chrome, click the 3-dot menu at the top right, and go to Passwords and Autofill > Google Password Manager. From there, click Settings. 

Click the Delete data button next to Delete all Google Password Manager data. 

Then click the toggle switch next to Offer to save passwords and passkeys so that it is turned off.

Removing Passwords from Microsoft Edge:
Open Microsoft Edge, click the 3-dot menu at the top right and go to Settings > Profiles > Passwords. 

If passwords are stored in Microsoft Edge, it will list them here. Delete them all.

From there, click Settings. 

Make sure Offer to save passwords is set to off.

Removing Passwords from Mozilla Firefox:
Open Firefox, click the hamburger menu at the top right, and go to Passwords, or go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Logins and Passwords > Saved logins. There should be an option to Remove All passwords. 

Toggle Ask to Save Logins and Passwords for Websites to off.

Removing Passwords from Safari:
Open Safari, go to Preferences, and click Passwords. You can delete each password record individually. On a Mac, you can select all of the passwords and delete them all at once as well.

Now go to the Safari menu, go to Preferences, and select AutoFill. You can turn off all the AutoFill settings to prevent Safari from storing usernames, passwords, and credit card information.

Celebrate! You Did It! You Just Made Your Life Exponentially More Secure! Oh Yeah, and Maintain the Course!

Congratulations! This wasn’t a small task, but we hope you feel it was worth it. 

The only thing you need to worry about now is staying the course. Always ensure new passwords get put into your new password manager, and when you need to update a password, it gets logged away.

Keep your password manager extremely secure—every 6-to-12 months, you should update the password to it and audit the account's security to ensure you always have access to your passwords. The password managers we suggested will all have tools and utilities that might warn you if something doesn’t seem right, or if you have an account with a weak password. 

Just think… no more rustling through reams of paper or sticky notes to find passwords, no more hunting down login credentials! On top of that, you’ve made yourself much more secure, and you’ve taken major efforts into cleaning up your cybersecurity hygiene. 

Great work!

If You Found This Guide Helpful…

Please share this with your friends, colleagues, family, and anyone else who could benefit from getting their security in order. If you have any feedback, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We hope this series can help a lot of people get their accounts in order!

Be Sure to Check Out The Rest of the Posts in This Series

This was a five-part guide! Head on back to our blog to see the rest of these articles (we’ve posted one every other weekday). You can also click on #Password Guide below to see all of the parts that are currently published.