A strong password is critical in keeping your business safe. It sounds so simple, just create a strong password! However, in reality, there are passwords for hundreds of different things relating to your business and your personal life that you lose track of what passwords you have for what. This leads to problems with password strength and password storage.
Passwords to keep your website secure include website logins, hosting logins and email logins.
Multiply that by the number of users you have and you have multiple opportunities to breach the defences.
Once hackers are inside it’s not difficult to ruin the content and reputation of a business, not least with creating malicious content on a website, but also by stealing data, stealing money and even corrupting systems that are not salvageable.
Top 100,000 passwords
In a recent study by the National Cyber Security Centre and Troy, we have been able to obtain a list of the top 100,000 most commonly used passwords which are cause for security breaches.
It’s amazing to see how simple passwords like 123456 have been the cause of some 23 million hacks! Even oreocookie has been used for over 3,000 hacks. Some employees use personal data, company names, and dates which can also be easily hacked. Looking through the list it is clear that these passwords are very simple and users struggle with remembering passwords for multiple applications.
This is where we help, by creating passwords and creating password management systems and policies for your company.
What Should I do as a business owner
As a small business owner we recommend you review all passwords for your company and online security to ensure passwords are managed centrally, strong enough not to be cracked, and are securely stored if there are many.
What is a Password Policy
How you manage your passwords will ultimately keep you safe online. A password policy that works for your organisation will dictate how frequently users should update their passwords. Having multiple passwords can be difficult to remember and therefore leads to individuals either writing them down or keeping them simple, both of which leads to higher chance of being hacked.
Password management tools are available which allow you to securely store passwords for all of your systems. Finding the right management tool is important and we help you find the right tool depending upon your needs.
Password policies may also include access levels so only required members of staff have access to certain features of the business, be it on your internal network, with emails, website or hosting security.