Often the only thing standing between hundreds of your sensitive files and a hacker wanting to exploit them for personal gain is a single password. That’s what makes login credentials one of the top targets of phishing campaigns.
Last year, credential compromises via phishing attacks rose by more than 70% over the previous year. Once a hacker can gain legitimate access via stolen or guessed passwords (the #1 cause of data breaches), they can gain access to sensitive information like credit card details, SSNs, and more, and can also perpetrate other scams using your hacked corporate email.
Password management should be one of the highest priorities for a company when it comes to data security along with managed IT security for their network and devices.
Leaving password management up to chance without a plan in place can lead to some of these common password mistakes that can leave you vulnerable to a data breach or cause hours of lost productivity:
- Using the same password for multiple logins
- Using weak passwords because they’re easier to remember
- Writing passwords down on sticky notes that are on or near the device they’re used with
- Saving password in a non-secure document on your computer
- Sharing passwords with others to save time accessing a program
- Losing access to vital logins when an employee abruptly leaves
- Use of web-browser password saving, which allows access on stolen or lost devices
How do you keep a handle on all those employee passwords to multiple different company applications? It’s a balance to increase security without decreasing productivity by making it harder for employees to login. A password management application is the answer.
The Benefits of Password Management Applications
It’s easy for a person to feel overwhelmed by passwords. It seems they’re used for just about every online activity these days, both at work and home. You need them to login to pay your cable bill online, access your company’s CRM program, and for a hundred other things.
The average company employee has 191 different passwords to keep track of.
Not all passwords are used daily. We also use some for applications that we only use monthly or longer than that. Those are often the ones that are more difficult to remember.
The shear number of passwords we have to know is why people tend to use just 3-5 passwords that they use for everything. But that’s not very secure. All a hacker has to do is guess one password to gain entry into multiple applications.
Password managers provide an answer by allowing you to remember just one master password to then gain access to saved (and difficult-to-guess) passwords for everything else. You simply access the password manager when you’re trying to login, enter your master password, then choose the login you need from its “password vault” and it will be auto filled into the login form.
Because you only need to remember your master password, it’s much easier to make it one that’s hard to guess.
Here are a few of the popular password management tools:
- LastPass
- Dashlane
- 1Password
- Zoho Vault
A password manager can help you secure your passwords and improve password management a number of ways.
Strong Passwords for Every Login
Instead of having to come up with passwords yourself, making sure they include numbers, characters, letters, and other hallmarks of a strong password, the password manager can autogenerate strong passwords for you, then securely save them for you in its password vault.
Customize Who Has Access
You don’t have to worry about being locked out of programs if your system administrator is out sick or suddenly leaves the company. You can configure which users have access to any other user’s passwords, as well as choose what they can access and for how long.
This is also helpful if you’re working with a vendor that needs temporary access because it allows you to time limit their access, so you don’t have to remember to go back and change a password you gave them after they’re done with their work.
Secure Online Shopping
Many password managers, such as LastPass, give you the ability to save your credit card details in their secure system, so you can easily populate numbers into a payment form. This can save time because a purchasing admin doesn’t have to constantly give the company credit card number out for a purchase, and instead can control access through the password management tool.
Incorporates Multi-Factor Authentication
Password managers have the ability to incorporate multi-factor authentication to further increase the security. This means your users will need to enter another authentication factor, such as a PIN that is sent to their mobile device, in order to gain access to the password vault.
They can also combine biometric and contextual intelligence to authenticate a user’s identity using a combination of factors for even stronger data security.
Get Help Protecting Your Data from Magnify247.com
Whether you need help implementing a password management application or securing your emails from all those phishing attacks, Magnify247.com is here with affordable, state-of-the-art solutions that can keep your business safe from digital attacks.
