It seems that nearly every day you hear of another security breach affecting even some of the largest companies. Sadly, it is often only a matter of time before your email or account information will be made available on the dark web, sold to the highest hacker bidder.
The best way to protect all of your accounts is to 1) use a strong password, 2) use unique passwords for all your accounts, and 3) use a secure method to store passwords. All too often, I hear of clients either writing passwords down on paper or using weak (or the same) passwords for accounts.
Weak passwords and recycling the same passwords are a formula for disaster. I can’t stress how important it is to have a strong, unique password for every account. This means you should never have the same password for more than one account like Facebook, your email, your bank, etc. Companies especially need to make sure that their accounts are properly credentialed with secure and strong password. (Enabling passkeys and/or two-factor authentication on all accounts that support it are also a must.)
Password managers securely store all of your passwords for you. In fact, a password manager is the key to creating unique, strong passwords for all of your accounts. You need only remember one single master password. Password managers also create very strong and unique passwords for you.
For example, if you are using a password manager and want to log in to your Google account, you simply enter your master password and the password manager automatically fills in the username and password. Some password managers, like 1Password and Bitwarden for example, even have team plans where you can share corporate passwords internally with multiple staff. MacOS will soon be rolling out a more enhanced password manager built right into the OS that will make managing passwords a breeze. Just be sure to use a trusted password manager.
I cannot stress the importance of password security for your business. Hackers can crack a weak password in seconds, and every data breach means that your email and passwords are steadily being leaked onto hacker forums on the dark web. Please consider implementing a password manager for you or your company today. Reach out to your IT team, or contact us for assistance or more information.
Going along with the importance of strong passwords, there is another important service you can use to see if your email has been part of a serious data breach. This is helpful so you can immediately change your password if that is the case. Troy Hunt is a security researcher who created a website called “Have I Been Pwned?” (Pwned is a hacker term for when a user is “owned” by a hacker) where you can enter your email address to see if it has been involved in a data breach.
Organizations can register their domain with Hunt’s service to be notified if any emails in a domain have been affected by a breach. This tool is a great step towards being proactive as well as getting an eye on the severity of the level of breaches occurring on what seems a daily basis.
Just visit https://haveibeenpwned.com to get started. The next step is to ensure a good password policy for yourself and your team members, including unique, strong passwords for all accounts and implementation of a good password manager software.
Stay safe out there … the digital terrain is full of all kinds of gremlins.
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