Your Password Protection Best Practices are Outdated

Large data breaches are often linked back to a simple and common problem: bad passwords. Even today in a heightened digital security environment, there are a number of common mistakes that can have serious consequences when it comes to protecting online information.  Using strong passwords should be a top priority. Here are the top mistakes we see when it comes to data security best practices, and what you should do instead to keep your company safer online.

Mistake #1: Repeated Passwords

The repeated use of passwords across multiple different accounts and the use of easily guessed passwords is still one of the top entry points for hackers to gain access to personal or sensitive information. If your employees are guilty of the common sin of using the same password for their corporate accounts as they do for their personal accounts, you are leaving your company exposed and vulnerable to the same level of security that their personal accounts support.

Take the Dropbox and LinkedIn hacks of recent years. These corporate attacks were facilitated because users were using the same password on their personal accounts as their professional ones. It’s not enough anymore to have just one strong password. Your employees need to be one step ahead of the bots and cybercriminals that are focusing 100% on how to gain access to your system.

Mistake #2: Single Word Passwords

Hacker bots are very, very good at looking through the dictionary to find the right combination of letters that a user would choose for their password. As most account users are thinking along very similar lines when creating their password initially, they are falling into a cybersecurity trap. The new best practice is to make a password that is both difficult to guess but easy to remember. An example of this is the use of a phrase rather than a word. To shorten up the password, but maintain the complexity, use the first letter or number of each word to create a seemingly random but easily recalled password.

Mistake #3: Letting Employees Take the Lead

It’s critical to establish and enforce strong corporate security policies. Make sure your employees are changing their passwords often, are using different passwords for each of their accounts, and always logging off when leaving a device, even just for a moment because that’s all it takes for someone to steal or change a password. Use comprehensive security software that protects against keystroke loggers and other malware.

Have employees use their password only on secure devices, and not access the corporate network from insecure Wi-Fi connections, or computers at an internet café or library. You can’t let the onus of corporate security fall on your employees alone. You must support them and teach them how to achieve greater security by setting the proper ground rules and infrastructure to keep everyone on track.

For more examples of how your team can be safer online, connect with the experts at Happy Faces Records Management.

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