How to Outsource Your Online Security with 1Password, Authy, and Privacy.com

As a full-stack developer, I‘m acutely aware of how critical online security is—not just for me personally, but for the users of the applications I build. In today‘s digital landscape, data breaches, account takeovers, and online fraud are all too common. Consider these sobering statistics:

• There were over 1,500 data breaches in 2019 alone, exposing more than 164 million sensitive records. (Source: Identity Theft Resource Center)
• 65% of people reuse the same password for multiple or all accounts. (Source: Google Online Security Blog)
• Losses from payment card fraud hit $28.65 billion worldwide in 2019. (Source: Nilson Report)

Clearly, the threats are very real—but so is the difficulty of maintaining strong security across the board. Memorizing a unique, complex password for every account is a near-impossible task. Securing online accounts with two-factor authentication (2FA) adds critical protection but can be a major hassle without the right tools. And safeguarding your payment info from ever-multiplying breaches is a constant struggle.

Fortunately, some fantastic tools exist to largely automate these important security practices. 1Password for password management, Authy for seamless 2FA, and Privacy.com for protecting online payments are three services that really stand out. I‘ve been using them myself and recommending them to every development team I work with. Here‘s a deep dive on why they‘re so effective and how they work under the hood.

1Password: The Ultimate Password Manager

1Password is a full-featured password management solution that can generate strong, unique passwords for all your accounts and securely store them in an encrypted vault. It offers plugins for every major browser that allow you to auto-fill your login credentials, making it effortless to use a different complex password on every site.

Under the hood, 1Password employs industry-standard 256-bit AES encryption to secure your data. Your master password, which is used to encrypt and decrypt your vault, is never stored in plaintext and never transmitted over the network. So even if 1Password‘s servers were compromised, attackers would not be able to access your passwords. (Source: 1Password Security Whitepaper)

In addition to its core password management functionality, 1Password offers several features that really elevate it from a security perspective. The Watchtower dashboard will alert you if any of your passwords have been exposed in a data breach, allowing you to proactively change them before they can be exploited. It also flags weak or reused passwords and provides an overall security score for your vault.

Perhaps my favorite 1Password feature is its tight integration with Have I Been Pwned (HIBP), the expansive database of compromised emails and passwords run by security expert Troy Hunt. Thanks to a partnership between 1Password and HIBP, you‘ll receive an alert the moment any of your credentials end up in a breach, even if they‘re not in your 1Password vault. (Source: Troy Hunt Blog)

Using 1Password is one of the most impactful things you can do to improve your online security posture. By ensuring every account has a strong, unique password, you drastically reduce your risk of credential stuffing and password spraying attacks. These attacks rely on reused or weak passwords and are incredibly common—a recent report found that credential stuffing accounted for 61% of all login attempts. (Source: Akamai 2020 Credential Stuffing Report)

Authy: Convenient and Secure 2FA

Even with strong unique passwords, there‘s still a chance your credentials could be compromised through methods like phishing or malware. That‘s where two-factor authentication (2FA) comes in, requiring a second form of proof in addition to your password to log in.

While any form of 2FA is better than none, some methods are better than others. SMS-based 2FA, where you receive a code via text message, is vulnerable to SIM swapping attacks and interception. Hardware security keys provide excellent security but can be inconvenient, especially for mobile devices.

My go-to recommendation for 2FA is Authy. Authy generates time-based one-time password (TOTP) codes, a secure standard originally developed by Google. These codes cycle regularly, typically every 30 seconds, and are cryptographically generated based on a secret seed. When you enable 2FA on a site that supports TOTP, they provide you with the seed, which you load into Authy. From then on, Authy will generate valid TOTP codes that prove you‘re the real owner of the account when logging in. (Source: Authy: How It Works)

Authy securely encrypts all your TOTP seeds with a password of your choosing, adding an extra layer of protection. It also allows you to sync your codes across multiple devices, including via an encrypted cloud backup. So even if you lose your phone, you won‘t be locked out of your accounts—a major advantage over other TOTP apps like Google Authenticator.

Using 2FA from Authy along with 1Password‘s unique passwords provides a formidable defense against account takeovers. Even if an attacker manages to obtain a password, they won‘t be able to log in without also getting their hands on your unlocked phone with Authy installed. This dual layer of protection is key, as Microsoft has reported that 2FA can block 99.9% of automated account hacks. (Source: Microsoft TechNet)

Privacy.com: A Shield for Your Finances

Beyond account access, another major area of online security risk is payments. Every time you store your credit card with an online retailer or service, you‘re trusting that they will safeguard it effectively. Unfortunately, data breaches exposing payment info are all too common. A 2018 study found that 60% of consumers had experienced a breach of their financial data within the past two years. (Source: PCI Pal Consumer Study)

Privacy.com solves this problem elegantly through the use of virtual payment cards. Instead of providing your actual debit or credit card number to merchants, you can instantly spin up a virtual card through Privacy.com that‘s locked to a single merchant. You can put spend limits on these virtual cards and pause or close them at any time.

The beauty of this approach is that even if a merchant experiences a breach, your real payment details stay safe—the virtual card number is essentially a throwaway token. The tokenization process happens entirely within Privacy.com‘s systems, so merchants never receive your true card number. (Source: Privacy.com FAQ)

Using a unique virtual card for each merchant also makes it trivial to identify fraudulent charges and put a stop to them. If you notice a suspicious transaction from a particular merchant, you can close that card immediately without impacting any of your other payment relationships.

Virtual payment cards are not only useful for your personal finances, but also for business expenses. They allow granular spend controls and easy expense tracking on a per-vendor basis. Privacy.com offers a slick interface to manage all your virtual cards, view transactions, and set up rules.

Combining unique virtual payment cards with strong unique passwords from 1Password and secure 2FA through Authy forms a powerful trifecta for protecting your online financial life. You‘re significantly reducing your exposure on three fronts: account access, authentication, and raw payment data.

A Key Part of Defense-in-Depth

1Password, Authy, and Privacy.com are all standout tools that significantly level up your personal online security. However, it‘s important to understand that they are not a complete solution on their own. True security requires a multi-layered, defense-in-depth approach.

Other important pieces of the puzzle include using a trustworthy VPN when on public networks, keeping your devices and software up-to-date with security patches, and practicing safe browsing habits to avoid phishing and malware. For developers, following the OWASP Top Ten guidelines and implementing secure authentication and access control in your applications is also critical.

That said, passwords, 2FA, and payment details are three of the most fundamental attack surfaces that impact virtually everyone. Taking action to address these key areas will absolutely increase your overall security posture and reduce your risk substantially.

When evaluating how to approach each of these areas, I‘ve found 1Password, Authy, and Privacy.com to be the ideal balance of security and convenience. Other password managers like LastPass and Dashlane are solid options but don‘t provide quite the same level of breach monitoring or HIBP integration as 1Password. For 2FA, Google Authenticator is a popular choice but lacks Authy‘s encrypted multi-device sync. And while there are a few other virtual payment card providers, none match Privacy.com‘s feature set and user experience.

Security Essentials for Developers

As a full-stack developer, I‘m also acutely aware that any application I build could potentially introduce new security risks for users if not implemented properly. Practicing good security hygiene in your own life makes you a better, more thoughtful developer when it comes to protecting user data.

In every application that involves user accounts, implementing secure authentication and access control should be a top priority. At a minimum, this means:

• Properly hashing and salting passwords in your database using a secure algorithm like bcrypt, scrypt or PBKDF2 (never store passwords in plaintext!)
• Enforcing strong password policies and providing tools like zxcvbn to help users generate robust passwords
• Implementing secure password reset flows that don‘t leak information about whether an account exists
• Offering multi-factor authentication options and encouraging users to enable them
• Using well-tested, industry-standard libraries and frameworks for authentication and access control rather than rolling your own
• Regularly auditing and testing your authentication and access control systems for vulnerabilities

For applications that handle sensitive financial data, the stakes are even higher. The PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) lays out a comprehensive set of requirements for securely processing, transmitting and storing cardholder data. At a high level, key principles include:

• Never store sensitive authentication data like CVV codes after authorization, even in encrypted form
• Render card numbers unreadable anywhere they‘re stored through hashing, truncation, or tokenization
• Encrypt transmission of cardholder data over open, public networks using strong cryptography and security protocols like TLS
• Restrict access to cardholder data on a need-to-know basis and assign a unique ID to each person with access
• Regularly monitor and test networks and systems for security vulnerabilities

Adhering to these principles is critical for any application that touches payment data. Failure to comply with PCI DSS can result in hefty fines, legal liabilities, and irreparable damage to your company‘s reputation. Integrating with a service like Privacy.com for virtual payment cards can help to minimize your PCI scope by reducing the amount of real cardholder data you need to handle directly.

As a developer, it‘s also important to stay up-to-date on the latest security best practices, threats, and vulnerabilities. Follow industry blogs and publications, participate in security-focused communities, and make a habit of reading vulnerability reports for the languages, frameworks, and libraries you use. Cultivating a security-first mindset will help you proactively identify and mitigate risks as you code.

Putting It All Together

Online security can seem like a daunting, never-ending task. And while there‘s no such thing as perfect security, there are some high-impact steps you can take to drastically reduce your risk. Using a password manager like 1Password, securing your accounts with two-factor authentication through Authy, and protecting your payment info with virtual cards from Privacy.com is a powerful combination.

These tools largely automate the process of following security best practices, making it easy to maintain a high level of protection without constant effort. For anyone who spends a significant amount of time online—which is just about everyone these days—they‘re well worth the minor upfront investment to set up.

As a full-stack developer, I see firsthand how vulnerable many applications and systems are. Taking control of your own security not only protects you personally but also helps to create a safer online ecosystem for everyone. By reducing the success rate of attacks, we can make them less profitable and less attractive to criminals.

If you‘re not already using a password manager, 2FA, and virtual payment cards, I highly encourage you to start today. 1Password, Authy, and Privacy.com are my personal recommendations, but the most important thing is to find tools that you‘ll actually use consistently. Investing a little time now to shore up your online security will pay massive dividends down the road. Stay safe out there!