I change oil for a living...for 33 years now at the same company.

I used to think hand tight was good but from experience I found out that is not tight enough sometimes. So I spin them on hand tight and then they need a little torque n with a filter wrench to insure what happened to you does not not happen to a vehicle going down the road.

I always put some dirty oil on the rubber gasket before installation. Yea dirty oil whats dripping off the vehicle only because I am lazy and it works for many years now.

If I am doing big trucks with big filters then I fill the filter 3/4 full first with fresh oil and then it get a little fresh oil on the gasket.

Use a wrench!