• Cyberthreats are everywhere. 91% of Americans have faced a scam or cyberattack attempt.
• Simple habits work. MFA, password managers, and pausing before you click stop most scams.
• Pay and verify wisely. Credit cards offer the best fraud recovery, and a family safeword can expose AI impersonation calls.

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, a yearly reminder that staying safe online isn't only a job for security teams. It's a set of everyday habits we all practice with every click, call, and purchase. This year's data makes the case for those habits clearer than ever.

According to the 2026 Consumer Cyber Readiness Report from Consumer Reports, Aspen Digital, and the Global Cyber Alliance, 91% of Americans have encountered at least one cyberattack or scam attempt, and 17% have lost money to one. Nearly a third (31%) have had an account taken over. The threats are everywhere, but the most effective defenses are simple, free, and within reach.

Five ways to get cyber ready this month

1. Turn on multifactor authentication

MFA adds a second check, so a stolen password alone isn't enough to get into your account. Yet only 60% of Americans use it. Start with your email, since it is often the reset key for every other account. Then protect your social media accounts, the most commonly hijacked type at 14%.

2. Let a password manager do the work

Only 44% of Americans use strong passwords, just 37% use a unique password for each account, and 30% still write passwords down. A password manager creates and stores strong, unique passwords for you, yet only 40% use one. Where sites offer passkeys, use them to skip passwords altogether.

3. Pause before you click, pay, or respond

Most scams start with a message: 29% arrive by email, 18% by text, and 11% by phone. People who caught scams in time spotted an unknown sender (59%), mismatched addresses (51%), or pressure to act immediately (50%). Urgency is the scammer's best tool. Slowing down is yours. And with one in five scams now using personal details, polished grammar is no longer proof that a message is real.

4. Set a family safeword

Phone scams are the most likely to be personalized (32%), and AI is making impersonation easier. A code word known only to your family can verify an urgent call from a "relative" in seconds. Only 13% of Americans have one, and setting it up takes five minutes.

5. Pay in ways that protect you

When scams succeed, how you pay decides whether you get your money back. 61% of credit card users recovered funds, compared with 15% for peer-to-peer apps and 5% for cryptocurrency. Use credit cards online, turn on transaction alerts, and treat any request for gift cards or crypto as a red flag.

Cyber readiness is a shared responsibility

Personal habits matter, but they aren't the whole answer. Confidence in data privacy fell from 48% to 32% in a single year, and 29% of Americans say the companies that run digital platforms should do the most to protect them. The report calls on businesses to make MFA standard, verify advertisers, and offer fraud reporting backed by real people.

This Cybersecurity Awareness Month, pick one step and do it this week. Then share it with someone who needs it. Cyber readiness grows one habit, and one conversation, at a time.