It’s an unfortunate fact that many people use the same credentials to log into different accounts. This password practice is a big part of what enables account takeovers, as it increases the likelihood that hackers can use compromised credentials to access sensitive information across accounts.

t’s important to emphasise that if you don’t reuse passwords, you are literally immune to credential stuffing.

Take a moment to consider the alternative. No, not the IT department's fantasy world, that never-gonna-happen scenario where you create a strong, unique password for every account, memorize each one, and refresh them every few months. We both know it's not like that. The reality is that in your attempts to handle all those passwords yourself, you will commit the cardinal sin of reusing some. That is actually far more risky than using a password manager. If a single site that uses this password falls, every account that uses it is compromised.

Password reuse is a serious problem because of the many password leaks that occur each year, even on large websites. When your password leaks, malicious individuals have an email address, username, and password combination they can try on other websites. If you use the same login information everywhere, a leak at one website could give people access to all your accounts. If someone gains access to your email account in this way, they could use password-reset links to access other websites, like your online banking or PayPal account.