On any given day you may need to enter 10-15 passwords if you use the following on a regular basis:
Whether it’s for work or personal use, passwords are an integral part of our routines at every level of access. And with the increasing complexity of illicit attempts to enter our lives of password-laden data, it forces us to adapt and further enforce our own internal password policies and procedures.
In doing so, it also creates additional points of user vulnerability if we continue to rely on outdated password storage recall techniques. Some common examples include (but are not limited to):
Password Management Controls are Your Only Defense
With all the threats facing us today, your only defense is creating a unique, multi-faceted, multi-word phrase password every two to four weeks that’s paired with 2-Factor Authentication. (Learn more about Multi-Factor Authentication and Password Policies in our previous blog posts.)
For example, let’s go back and update old weak passwords into big strong passwords and we may get a password for Windows that looks like this: Br0wn mill3r V1rtuE #Pige0n For3. And a password for a Line of Business application that looks like this: 5ilent r0ck @Tum3ric 1celanD F4ce.
These are much stronger passwords, but how are you or your employees supposed to remember a single password like this, let alone 10 or more?
You can either write them down on a piece of paper, which can make you a walking target, or you can implement a password management tool that does the heavy lifting for you. Solutions like 1password and LastPass offer built in features and utilities such as:
When you assess the risks, it becomes more a matter of ‘when’ you are going to implement password management rather than ‘if’ you should. This may sound like a lot of work for some of you reading this, but it’s nothing compared to being hacked, crypto locked, or scrambling reactively after a critical data breach.
Sadly, the days of cleverly using our dog’s birthday as a universal password no longer cut it against the ever-advancing threats to your secure data; so if you would like to learn how EXP Technical can implement effective password management, policies, and training into your cybersecurity defense plan contact us today!