The guide to password security (and why you should care)

 In a better world, vulnerable accounts like banks, medical records, e-mail, and cloud drives would be protected with biometric systems. A swipe of a finger or a retina scan would allow access to your most important data.

Alas, eight-or-more-character passwords still dominate Web service log-ins. Anything from your investment portfolio to your Facebook account is simply accessed with an e-mail address (or username) and a few characters.

Yet, many Internet users continue to use easy-to-guess passwords like "123456," "qwerty," or their first names. Even worse, users repeat the same password (or a variation of one) across … Read more

How to spot dangerous links before you click them

You probably got to this page by clicking a link. Links are the ties that bind the Web. But each click is also a leap of faith. How do you know you're going to the page you think you're going to?

Google search results let you preview pages before you follow the link, but elsewhere the best you can do is hover over the link to see at the bottom of the browser the URL of the page the link will open. (See below for more on free browser add-ons that rate the security of links in search …