Managed Services in Orange County: The Importance of Changing Passwords

The average employee sets his or her password when first using a program, forgets to change it as time progresses and ultimately opens up the organization to a potentially devastating digital security breach. Even if you send out the occasional memo advising employees to change their passwords, the message won’t hit home until you explain why password alterations are necessary and make those updates a standard operating procedure. Let’s take a quick look at the importance of password security as detailed by our managed services team in Orange County:

Why Password Security Matters

Hackers really will attempt seemingly countless username/password combinations to break into corporate systems, pilfer valuable data and cripple operations. If your team does not use unique passwords that are changed at the appropriate frequencies, your company’s sensitive data will be at risk. Take a moment to think about the ramifications of a hacker successfully logging into your system with employee credentials: you will end up investing considerable time, money and effort tending to the damage.

Every manager should discourage employees from using personal information in passwords. After all, a hacker merely needs to peruse a target’s social media to find out information that might be used in his or her passwords. This is not to say passwords should be completely randomized. Rather, passwords should have some sort of rhyme and reason so employees can remember them, enter them in a timely manner and get to work.

Avoid Simple Passwords

The best passwords are long, complex and somewhat easy to remember. Using a single word without special characters, numbers and a combination of upper and lower case letters can help hackers more easily access your account. When our managed services team in Orange County is asked about the best passwords, we advise special characters, numbers and upper/lower case letters are necessary. Hackers will perform brute force attacks to crack passwords. This means a series of letter/number combinations will be used until the right one is reached. It is now possible for cyber miscreants to run upwards of a million passwords in a single second. This is precisely why your team should use highly complex passwords with diverse letters, numbers and special characters.

Implement Two-factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security, such as the use of a one-time security code in addition to the username/password to ensure only authorized employees access the system. Our Orange County IT support team can help you implement two-factor authentication to safeguard your sensitive data.

Use a Unique Password for Each Account

If you use the same passwords over and over again, you will essentially provide cyber thieves with a skeleton key that leads to widespread unauthorized access. Every single password you use should be completely unique and changed at least once every six months.

Changing your passwords at the appropriate frequency is only one component of digital security. At Technijian, our managed services team in Orange County will help you fortify your digital defenses as best as possible. Contact us now to find out more about how we can help your business.