Best Practices: Keeping Your Passwords Safe

Passwords might be frustrating and hard to remember, but they aren’t going anywhere. Even in the face of innovative biometric data, passwords remain the most reliable way of keeping your data and personal information secure. The best way to improve your security protocol is to create strong passwords, store them securely, and change them regularly.   

Create a Strong Password

It might sound obvious, but a strong password is the best way to protect your business from cyberattacks and malware. It’s also the best way to protect your personal data when online or when working from unfamiliar PCs. Strong passwords are made from a long string of numbers and letters. 

Cybercriminals have several ways to capture users’ passwords, including dictionary attacks that can easily identify simple passwords. This method is used to capture passwords that use everyday language, so it’s best to make passwords longer and more cryptic.   

Use Different Passwords

Passwords can be difficult to create and remember, which is why many people choose to make one password and use it for several accounts. While this is more convenient, it reduces the effectiveness of the password and creates a security risk. When one account is breached, they all are. 

Although it seems like more work and more effort, creating different passwords for different accounts and storing them on a keychain or somewhere offline is the best way to secure your accounts. Try not to make your passwords similar in terms of letters, symbols, or themes.  

Use Two-Factor Identification 

In recent years passwords have become less secure as hackers improve their methods for cracking common security protocols and malware becomes more sophisticated. In response, businesses are using two-factor identification more and more. 

As well as a password, users have a second security protocol to navigate. Once the password is accepted, they have to answer a phone call, a text message, or an e-mail. This means that cracking the password is no longer enough for hackers who struggle with the second step.   

Keep Them Logged Safely

Passwords managers and operating system keychains might not seem like the best way of keeping your passwords secure – even if they are the most convenient. It’s easy to think that your digitally stored passwords are also vulnerable to hackers – that’s not the case. 

In reality, password managers and keychains use the latest security technology to ensure that passwords are kept as safe as possible. They not only have encryption, but they detect security issues and notify you, and protect against well-known scams.   

Have an IT Company Audit

If you run a small business or you are concerned about your online security, it’s a good idea to run an official IT audit. This involves an IT company or managed service provider (MSP) assessing your organization’s security and testing it for weaknesses.  

An MSP will conduct a full security audit of your systems and test them for reliability and effectiveness. They will then put measures in place to increase your security protocol’s strength and reliability, including more education.