Digital safety checklist: accounts and scams

Digital safety comes down to a password manager, two-step login, backups, updates, a secured router and smart devices, spotting phishing and scams, knowing what to do after a hacked account or identity theft, and wiping old devices.

Most people who lose an account, a phone full of photos or money to an online scam were not unlucky. They were one setting short. This bundle is the short list of settings and habits that stop most of it, in the order that protects the most: a password manager and two-step login on the email that resets everything else, backups of your phone and computer, updates, and a locked-down router and smart devices. Then the scams, phishing, fake tech support and the rest, and exactly what to do in the first hour if an account or your identity is stolen.