Have you ever been hacked? I have. It wasn’t fun and it cost me money. The whole experience made me re-think my internet security habits, especially my secure passwords. Given the wealth of information we host, share and collect online, whether you’re running a business online or use it for everyday browsing and organisation your passwords are important.
Despite being so important people are opening themselves up to vulnerabilities thanks to not using secure passwords.
People Still Choose Easy-To-Crack Passwords
Many of us still pick simple passwords. These might be our pet’s names or our birthdays; we still default to basics, mostly so that we can remember our many passwords. In business, the failure to choose secure passwords could cost you. Not only could using Snowy’s name as your password risk your profits; it also exposes customer info. Hackers can crack passwords like these without even needing equipment. To make sure it doesn’t happen, be smart. Always include upper and lower case letters, as well as numbers and/or symbols.
People Write Passwords Down
The trouble is that complicated passwords like those mentioned above are tricky to remember. That’s good in many ways, but it also means a lot of us fall foul to writing them down somewhere. You may keep them on a post-it near your desk, or even save them in a computer file. You don’t need me to tell you why that’s bad. If passwords are written down in physical or digital form, there’s a risk that the wrong person will see them. It’s crucial, then, that you memorise passwords without making a note of them.
There are plenty of memory methods you could use to do this. If you have a whole team, it’s worth turning to sso solutions (single sign-on solutions) like those offered by ProofID. This means that staff members only need to remember one password to gain access to everything they need. Thus, there’s more chance of them being able to remember without jotting sensitive information down.
Shared Passwords Lead to Exposure
Within a company, it’s also not unusual for team members to share a password to certain applications. This is a fast way to make business easier and can seem like a no-brainer. That is of course until you consider that the more people who use that one password, the more risk there is of a breach. It is so important to make sure that if you share applications with others, as I sometimes do with clients, that you utilise secure passwords.
Secure Passwords Summary
My hack was some time ago and thankfully not caused by a password issue. It could have been though. These days I’m GDPR ready, secure passwords are in place, I use an encrypted online password manager and I don’t use the same password twice. I make changing those secure passwords periodically an ongoing business admin task and once I’ve finished using an application with someone else, I change that password straight away. With a little effort, you may enjoy the peace of mind that comes with using secure passwords on all of your devices and across all of your accounts and sites.
