Full Organization Protection: Password Tips for the Personal & the Professional
Struggling with data security in your office or business? Start with creating a better password by following these tips.
As a professional who either manages a department or owns a business, digital security should be an utmost priority. This is because, as a business leader, you are charged not only with your sensitive data, but also that of your organization, your employees, and your clients. And the best way to get started with improving your digital security is with a good password and a great organizational password policy.
Creating a Good Password
While this may seem obvious, way too many professionals continue to use common passwords like ‘123456789’ and the maddening ‘password.’ These types of passwords can be easily guessed, leaving the critical data behind it open for even the most novice of hackers and identity thieves.
The good news is that creating a secure password isn’t hard, and many websites now offer easy prompts to follow that make drafting a strong password easy. Let’s take a look at some of the most common things you can do to improve how you create or otherwise choose a password:
- Make it long. There are several conventional methods hackers and identity thieves will use to attempt and break into a count. The most basic of this is to personally target you or your organization and manually type in the most common passwords. The next standard method is a brute force attack in which a computer program runs through every possible combination. A longer, complex password prevents against brute force attacks as it increases the time and increases the chance other digital security measures will intervene in time. Thus, aim to make your password at least eight characters long.
- Make it nonsense. Long is good but making it a long, nonsense password is even better. Consider random words that have no special relationship with you. For example, ‘yellowsjohnsalmon’ is a great phrase that has no real meaning, but, as such, it is hard to break.
- Add in numbers, symptoms, and different letter cases. The final phase of creating a strong password is to take your long nonsense phrase and add in different letter cases, numbers, and symbols. For example, you might change ‘yellowjohnsalmon’ to ‘YELLOWj0hns@lmon’.
Establishing Better Organizational Password Security
Again, when you own or otherwise operate an organization, it’s not just about your security. Having your secure passwords is a good step. Still, it’s also essential to ensure others in your organization are taking the right precautions as well and that you are fostering a digitally secure environment.
Get started by implementing the following necessary security measures:
- Have different passwords for different accounts. The number one thing you do not want to do is have the same password for every one of your personal or every one of your major business accounts and servers. Establish different levels of security clearance and have a different password for each.
- Keep a master key. Once you’ve established passwords for each clearance level, input them into an advanced password management tool like LastPass. This will help you keep things organized, and it can be readily shared with a few selected and authorized individuals.
- Change your passwords quarterly. Disgruntled former employees have been known to take advantage of previous companies’ databases and former colleagues’ information. Prevent your business, employees, and clients from being targets by implementing a policy of changing passwords at least once every three months.
Contact Us Today to Learn More About Keeping Your Business Secure
When it comes to data security, passwords are just the tip of the iceberg. Granted, they are an essential aspect, and learning how to create and store better passwords is an excellent first step for any professional or business leader looking to improve their data security. But still, they are just the start. Contact our team today to learn more about internet security and what you could be doing to improve the digital safety of your organization.