The Power of A Password

2020-05-07

Phishing is an industry-wide problem and it’s growing, even during lockdown. During the current Covid 19 crisis there has been an increase in the number of cyber-attacks as companies roll out remote working for the first time, or employees who have never previously have had to, figure out how to plug in and work from home.

Hackers and cyber criminals see potential vulnerabilities and areas of weakness. Protecting the integrity of an organisations network and maintaining the highest level of cyber security should remain the highest priority at all times. 

Every business is vulnerable because business email is a very popular attack vector for cybercriminals who hope to gain easy access to your assets and data by fooling unsuspecting employees. Often if they know the email address of one person in an organisation, they can easily work out the rest, and use that information to exploit any weakness. These attacks can infiltrate an organisations infrastructure and encrypt their data simply by an employee clicking on a malicious link which they believed to be genuine. It is a misfortunate incident that can have major consequences on any business or organisation.

Passwords provide the first line of defence against unauthorised access to your computer and personal information. The stronger your employees password, the more protected their computer and your company will be from hackers and malicious software.

A strong password provides essential protection from financial fraud and identity theft.

Some ideas worth considering when creating passwords are:

• Using passwords that are long, complex and random, not linked to any personal information.
• Passwords should contain at least ten characters and have a combination of characters such as commas, percent signs, and parentheses, as well as upper-case and lower-case letters and numbers. e.g. Pr1nt3ris0ut0f!nk. Different users can also have different complexities to increase security of any sensitive data they may have access to. e.g. Finance 12, Director 16.
• Never writing down passwords, the days of a post it under your keyboard should never return!
• Never use the same password twice. Hackers who break into one machine will try to use the same password to take control of others, don’t make it easy for them. If you have trouble then Consider a core password e.g. Pr1nt3ris0ut0f!nk then mix it up e.g. Amazon password @m_Pr1nt3ris0ut0f!nk_@z0n! and for Netflix password  N3tF_Pr1nt3ris0ut0f!nk_l1x or use something like KeePass, set a very strong original password.

We would recommend that business layer up by using Multi-Factor Authentication. This is an authentication method in which a computer user is granted access only after successfully presenting two or more known identity confirmations, one that you know  (password) and what you have (such as a code texted to their known phone number).

As we move into a new phase and a “new normal” ahead every business and organisation wants to ensure productivity for staff who may have to continue to work remotely, however it cannot come at the expense of proper security. Business leaders must weigh the risks they are facing with these heightened threats very carefully and take any and all measures available to ensure access is granted only to authentic users.

At Outsource we understand the importance of having a multi-layered defence mechanism to provide maximum protection from cyber-attacks to help make life better for you and your team. Our multi-layered approach to data security is proactively updated, continually monitored, and has a variety of alerts in place which allow us to respond and take any necessary actions. Our services are designed to offer maximum protection and peace of mind and should the worst happen our FMC will guarantee recovery your data.

Contact us if you would like to find out more about how we can help you and your business best plan and prepare for the new normal ahead.