Change Your Password Day Date in the current year: February 1, 2025

It is nearly impossible to navigate modern life without email and other online accounts. And if they are compromised, the consequences can be severe, as people with access to your accounts can steal your money and even your identity by using your personal information to commit fraud.

To protect your accounts, it’s important to create strong passwords and change them regularly, because even strong passwords can be compromised in data breaches. It is generally recommended to change your passwords once a year if they have not been compromised – this is where Change Your Password Day comes in.

Change Your Password Day was started in 2012 by Matt Buchanan, a writer for the design, technology, science, and science fiction website Gizmodo. Buchanan had been hacked twice and thought it would be good to set aside a day to remind people to change their passwords. Of course, the best way to celebrate the holiday is to change all your passwords, or at least the most important ones, and make sure your new passwords are as secure as possible.

Here are a few tips for those who want to come up with strong passwords and protect their accounts:

• This one is a no-brainer, but worth a reminder: avoid using common passwords like “password”, “qwerty”, “123456”, etc.
• Avoid passwords based on easily accessible or guessable information such as names (including your pets’ names), birthdays, etc. Your password recovery options (security questions) should also not be easily guessable.
• Longer is better: When creating a new password, aim for at least 12 characters.
• Make sure your password contains several different types of characters: uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
• Use a unique password for each of your most important accounts.
• If available, enable two-factor authentication for an extra layer of security; it will protect your accounts from unauthorized access even if your password is compromised.
• Check regularly for compromised passwords or email addresses using tools such as Have I Been Pwned (haveibeenpwned.com), and update any passwords that have been exposed.

If you cannot remember complicated passwords made up of random characters, do not write them down where they are easily accessible. You can use a password manager app, but we do not recommend using Google Password Manager tied to your primary account, because if your Google account is compromised, the rest of your accounts will be compromised as well.

Change Your Password Day is not the only holiday that reminds people to create strong passwords and change them regularly. There’s also World Password Day, which is celebrated on the first Thursday in May. It was created by Intel Security in 2013 and submitted to National Day Calendar by Big Monocle three years later. If you forgot to update your passwords on Change Your Passwords Day, World Password Day is the perfect excuse to finally get it done!