National Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Passwords

National Cybersecurity Awareness Month

1) Choosing a password

When it comes to choosing a password, don’t worry about complexity. Password cracking comes down to a computer program. A computer program doesn’t care if it’s a complex password like characters, special characters, punctuation marks, etc.

It’s all about character length – check out this video for a better explanation:

2) Separate your personal passwords and business passwords

It makes things challenging if/when an employee wants to leave a company. Handing off passwords should be an easy feat. Don’t make it more difficult for yourself or employees. What if you can’t reach out or get ahold of an employee and you need passwords far after an employee has left?
It also makes things difficult for your company, they could lose access to critical data or important accounts. It’s a business’s responsibility to ensure that passwords are managed properly, to avoid serious loss.

LastPass – secure password manager that stores all your usernames and passwords in one safe place called a Vault. After you save a password to your Vault, LastPass always remembers it for you.
Bitwarden – free open-source password manager for individuals, teams, and businesses.
1Password – a cloud-based tool that will remember your passwords for you with a single tap.
Dashlane – a simple tool that fills all your passwords, payments, and personal details wherever you need them, across the web, on any device.

4) Are your passwords secure?

Even if you have a great password when a website is hacked your password is no longer secure. It’s in your best interest to be aware of what websites have been hacked and if your passwords have been compromised.

A great place to start is visiting websites that can tell you if you’ve been hacked. Check out this video for more information: