If this sounds like you, then this article is for you. I’ll explore what drawbacks exist with storing passwords in a browser as well as more secure alternatives you can use to protect your data online. Speaking of protecting your data, I’ll also touch on why this is so important and try to explain everything with practical examples that showcase the real-world impact of lax security on you as a person or business.
At some point as you browse for news online or through your preferred platform for accessing information on worldy affairs, you have probably come across stories that discuss how private, public and even governmental organizations get hacked and their data stolen. You may also have seen happen to famous individuals, most commonly with their social media accounts. This is an ongoing problem that exists at the time of writing this and will likely continue to exist long after the date this is published.
Just to further drive the point home, here is a recap of some of the more recent severe data breaches that have taken place in the past few years:
Yahoo (2013–2016, disclosed later)
3 billion accounts affected. Russian hackers stole user data over three years, but Yahoo delayed disclosure, leading to a $35 million fine.
Facebook (2021)
530 million users exposed
A vulnerability in Facebook’s contact-syncing tool allowed hackers to scrape phone numbers and account details, later leaked publicly.
Default Passwords in Crosswalks Exploited – 2025
Researchers revealed that crosswalk systems are often left with default credentials (e.g., “123456”), making them easy targets. A YouTube tutorial demonstrated how to alter audio messages via a simple app.
McDonald’s AI Chatbot Breach (2025)
Affected 64 million job applicants. A weak password (“123456”) exposed personal data of applicants via McDonald’s recruitment chatbot.
Marks & Spencer (M&S) Ransomware Attack – April 2025
Customer data exposed; £300M market loss. A ransomware attack disrupted online orders and contactless payments. While payment details were spared, M&S faced severe operational delays and reputational damage.
The Co-operative Group – April 2025
Member data (names, contact info) stolen. Attackers breached IT systems, causing store disruptions. The Co-op shut down systems preemptively, avoiding ransomware deployment but faced empty shelves and member distrust.
Successful hacking attempts take a variety of approaches and as you can see from some of the example stories above, using default or unsecure passwords even today is still a common reason why this happens to even the largest organizations. Data stolen from such data breaches impacts not just the organizations with bad press that leads to loss of customer trust and eventually loss of revenue, but also you as the customer because:
So let’s talk about how you as an individual or organization can protect yourself better from data theft.
While it’s true that a data breach taking place due to poor or improper security from a company you have entrusted your data to can be outside your control, many organizations today are empowering you as the customer to protect your account information. It is therefore very important to take a moment to familiarize yourself with best practices that revolve around account security. The ones I’ll cover are:
Over the years, the drum of “create strong passwords” has been beat over and over, yet some of the data breaches mentioned above are a direct result of ignoring this advice. I’m therefore here to beat this drum as well in hopes that if enough of us shout from the rooftops, data theft caused by weak passwords just might become history.
In addition to strong passwords, it’s not only crucial but an industry standard to have an additional way to authenticate yourself before accessing an account. This could take the form of OTPs (One Time Passwords) sent to your email or phone, authenticator apps, biometrics or even physical devices. This second layer of security makes it harder for hackers to access your account and steal your data, so why not take an extra minute or two to set it up?
Teams and companies need to know everything highlighted in the individuals section above…so the focus here will be about access control and password sharing.
As the owner or manager in your team or organization, how do you share passwords? Is just written down on a sticky note or sent in plain text as a chat message? If that shared password needs to be reset, how is the new password shared? How is a password rotated (changed) once someone leaves the team/company? Do you even know who has the passwords to what?
If any of the above questions are difficult for you to answer, then you absolutely need a password manager because simply put, these are the exact problems and challenges it resolves. Password storage in browsers may evolve in the future to support these use cases, but as of today they still fall very far from addressing the questions raised above. Let’s break this down point by point.
Browser password managers have made strides to improve their security over time, but as hinted above, they have a number of shortcomings that at the time of writing, include:
While I’m focusing on best practices around password management, it is worth noting that this is just one tool in the security kit that organizations should have to protect both their own data as well as their customers data.
There are plethora of other tools and best practices that businesses of all sizes should follow to avoid becoming a part of the data breach news cycle and to name just a few of them:
Investing in a password manager to protect your online accounts is a crucial and essential tool to have for both individuals and businesses. While it certainly is not a silver bullet that solves all problems related to protecting your data, it certainly makes it that much harder for malicious actors to access your precious information.
Check out the password manager solution we provide in the link here or for teams and companies looking to improve their overall security, checkout our managed hosting service linked here.
