Your first line of defense is your employees. Each employee plays a critical role in ensuring your cybersecurity positions are impregnable. However, perfunctorily chosen passwords render your business vulnerable to malicious actors. At ITs Managed, we’ve provided the best small business IT solutions in Grants Pass and Medford, OR for over 25 years. We guarantee to shore up your cyber defenses. We can scale services to any company size and pride ourselves on transparent and proactive services.
Here’s our guide to password management:
Despite pervasive threats, people still use simple passwords. Ultimately, the best small business IT security solutions begin with eliminating these hazards.
However, simple passwords come in different forms. Most commonly, people will use a rudimentary pattern and words. These predictable patterns and choices make passwords inexcusably easy to guess.
Also, people tend to use names or birthdays from their lives. Particularly with the advent of Social Media, this information is more easily accessible than ever before, which renders these passwords easier to guess than ever, too.
Use complicated, stronger passphrases with a mix of characters. Even better, integrating a two-factor authentication will add another line of defense and help prevent unauthorized people from gaining access to sensitive login credentials.
If you’re unsure how to convey the gravity of carefully selecting passwords to your staff, at ITs Managed, we can do that and more. We’ll make your security positions impenetrable.
Another major mistake many users make is recycling passwords. One thing we make abundantly clear to companies is that this is a dangerous, detrimental practice.
Part of providing the best small business IT solutions is this transparency. The problem with password recycling is users often choose easy-to-remember passwords they’ve applied to other accounts.
These widely applied passwords mean that, typically, these passwords will be short, simple, and easy to guess. Once a malicious actor discovers this password, every account is compromised, and so is your business. While recycling passwords is more convenient, the risk unacceptable.
The most significant hazard is something called credential stuffing. Credential stuffing is a strategy utilized by malicious actors to gain access to accounts. This strategy leverages bots to inundate sites using stolen credentials from data breaches at other sites until they’ve found the correct configuration.
The more a password is recycled, the more likely it is to be stolen. However, with ITs Managed, we’ll protect these credentials like the invaluable assets they are.
One solution many people may assume will enhance security is mandating password changes. In theory, this seems like it should work. In practice, it does more harm than good.
More often than not, people forced to change passwords frequently end up with weaker passcodes. The best small business IT solutions account for this human error. People don’t put thought into passwords when they have to change them regularly.
Even worst, users often use predictable patterns when changing passwords. Hackers and malicious actors can easily guess these passcodes with minimal effort once they can identify and exploit these patterns.
Ultimately, each password change results in diminished security. It’s hard enough to remember passwords, and forcing people to change passwords regularly means each subsequent passcode will get easier to guess.
If you need the best small business IT solutions but don’t need an entire department, ITs Managed can handle your IT needs. We scale services to businesses of all sizes and ensure your IT systems and networks are secure and effective. With over 25 years of industry experience, we pride ourselves on responsive, reputable, and proactive service. Schedule a consultation now! Our tailored IT solutions will fit your company like a glove.
