A good password can save the day! Prevent corporate espionage, sabotage and personal identity theft by relying on strong and savvy passwords.
Are you still using your annual vacation destination plus the ‘@’ symbol for your banking password? In 2021, that’s not enough to protect your financial resources. Develop strong additional authentication mechanisms for your most important accounts. This can help prevent theft, fraud and other cyber crimes.
How can you improve password security?
- To avoid brute-force password cracking, the minimum password length is 13 characters. Create passwords that are at least 13 characters long.
- Across the past five years, the top 10 most commonly used passwords have barely changed. Are you still using 12345? Ensure that your password is not on the list of most commonly used passwords.
- Omit personal information from passwords. Avoid using your date of birth. Avoid using a street address. Avoid using names of children and pets.
- Are your passwords unique? Avoid using your email client password for your shopping or entertainment accounts. If memorizing long strings of numbers and letters isn’t your forte, consider leveraging a password manager (although they have their drawbacks too).
- Be sure to apply two-factor authentication to all accounts.
Eliminating password overload
Roughly 70% of consumers maintain at least 10 online password-protected accounts. Of survey respondents, 30% reported owning “too many to count,” in regards to platforms and passwords. Weak passwords and password reuse is common due to users’ sense of password overload. How can you combat this within your organization?
- Single sign-on software (SSO) can eliminate the need for your employees to memorize or store a large number of passwords.
- Password management software can minimize password fatigue.
- Password reset option can prove helpful, although sophisticated hackers have been known to impersonate users and to then hijack accounts.
Will password security recommendations change?
As technology changes and as threat actors develop increasingly sophisticated means of attack, best practices around passwords and protecting accounts may change too.