Passwords are a hot topic these days, and for good reason. With all the hacking going on in the world today, it is important to keep your business safe from outside threats. One of the best ways to do this is by managing passwords securely. That’s why we’re here with some top tips on how to manage passwords for your business IT and what the merits are for choosing passwords which are secure.
It’s hard to remember all the passwords you’re supposed to know in order to keep your business running smoothly. There are IT passwords, computer passwords, social media account passwords and more! It can be easy for these things to get out of hand if you don’t take care of them.
This is why it’s important to make sure that you are managing passwords securely. It would be even better if you could manage them all with minimal effort on your part! A strong password policy makes this possible – here we will go through some of the benefits and how you should do each step:
- Don’t use an easy to guess word as your password. Any password which uses the letters in your name, family members’ names or your birthdate is too easy to guess. These are some of the first passwords that hackers will try because they are so common.
- You should also avoid using words which appear in a dictionary – no matter how long it is! The best idea would be to create something completely unique for each password you have. This way even if one of your passwords is cracked, it will be useless for the hackers.
- Don’t use the same password for more than one account either! This makes it easier to hack into your accounts if someone gets hold of just one set of credentials, so make sure they are different each time you create an account on a new website or service.
- Don’t enable automatic log-in. This can also be incredibly dangerous as this means that you do not have to constantly re-enter your password. This makes it incredibly easy for someone who is trying to hack into your account, as they can just sit and wait until you go on a website which has auto log in enabled – then hey presto! They’ll have access to all of the information stored within that account.
- Avoid keeping passwords in a text file or written down. This isn’t great because if someone got access to your device, they’d have no trouble obtaining it so make sure you keep all of your password details safely stored on an encrypted app such as LastPass – this way when you need a password you can log in and fill it straight into a text box.
- Change your passwords on a regular basis. If you’ve been using the same password for a year, it’s likely that hackers and cyber criminals will have found out what it is so change your passwords every couple of months to keep them secure. Don’t use ‘password’ as part of any other word in your chosen password – this makes it easy for someone to guess because they can simply read the word and then use it for whatever they’re trying to hack into.
- Replace your passwords with Biometrics. By setting up your fingerprint as your password, you can be sure it’s impossible to hack into as there is no way of gaining access through a ‘virtual’ method. Hackers may potentially be able to guess what the correct password is but they will never be able to guess the right fingerprint identification as it is so unique to you.
These are just some of our top tips on how to manage passwords for your business. There are many more options out there and if you would like to know more about how to manage your business IT security, please contact our IT specialists at Tabard on 0131 339 9448.