Passwords are the most common way for your organisation and the people in it to prove identity when banking, making purchases and other transactional online activities, accessing services, using email and accessing computers themselves (via User Accounts). The use of strong passwords and their secrecy is therefore vital in order to protect the organisation's and individuals’ security and identity. The best security in the world is useless if a malicious or other unauthorised person has a legitimate user name and password.
Get Safe Online's top tips...
- Passwords should be devised to be as difficult as possible to guess.
- They should never be revealed to anyone else, and if this does happen either deliberately or inadvertently, they should be changed immediately.
For this reason, password protocol and control should be a key part of your organisation’s cyber and information security strategy.
Passwords are commonly used in conjunction with usernames. However, on secure sites they may also be used alongside other methods of identification such as a separate PIN and/or memorable information or characters generated by an electronic token or keypad (called multi-factor authentication). In some cases, websites request entry of only certain password characters for additional security.
The risks of using weak passwords
People impersonating your company or employees to commit fraud and other crimes, including:
- Accessing your bank accounts.
- Purchasing items online in your business’ name.
- Impersonating your business or employees on social networking platforms.
- Sending emails in your business or employees’ name
- Accessing data held on your network.
- Hacking into your website.
Choosing the Best Passwords
Do:
- Always use a password.
- There are no hard and fast rules, but you could consider the following suggestions:
- Choose a password with at least eight characters (more if you can, as longer passwords are harder for criminals to guess or break), a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and keyboard symbols such as @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ +. (for example SP1D3Rm@n – a variation of spiderman, with letters, numbers, upper and lower case). However, be aware that some of these punctuation marks may be difficult to enter on foreign keyboards. Also remember that changing letters to numbers (for example E to 3 and i to 1) are techniques well-known to criminals.
- Combine two or more unassociated words, for example things you see when you look out the window or on your desk. Examples: MagpieDrainpipe or MonitorEarwigBrick. Note that these would not be suitable where one or more numerical characters are required.
- A line of a song that other people would not associate with you.
- Someone else's mother's maiden name (not your own mother's maiden name).
- Pick a phrase known to you, for example 'Tramps like us, baby we were born to run'" and take the first character from each word to get 'tlu,bwwbtr'
- Consider using a password creator, for example: https://identitysafe.norton.com/password-generator
Don’t:
- Use the following as passwords:
- Usernames, actual names or business name.
- Family members’ or pets’ names.
- Own or family birthdays.
- Favourite football or F1 team or other words easy to work out with a little background knowledge.
- The word ‘password’.
- Numerical sequences.
- A single commonplace dictionary word, which could be cracked by common hacking programs.
- When choosing numerical passcodes or PINs, do not use ascending or descending numbers (for example 4321 or 12345), duplicated numbers (such as 1111) or easily recognisable keypad patterns (such as 14789 or 2580).
Looking After Your Passwords
- Never disclose your passwords to anyone else. If you think that someone else knows your password, change it immediately.
- Don't enter your password when others can see what you are typing.
- Change your passwords regularly.
- Use a different password for every website. If you have only one password, a criminal simply has to break it to gain access to everything.
- Don’t recycle passwords (for example password2, password3).
- If you must write passwords down in order to remember them, make sure they are meaningless to, and unusable by other people by writing them in code (substituting the characters in your password with others that you can remember, or easily work out).
- Do not send your password by email. No reputable firm will ask you to do this.
The fact that you should use different passwords for each of your accounts can make them very difficult to remember. Consider using one of the many password vaults available on the internet, but read reviews and get recommendations.
Controlling user accounts
Everybody who uses a computer should be assigned their own user account so that only they can access their files and programs. Each user account should be accessible only by entering a username and password in order to safeguard users’ privacy. Other user account features can also be set up in user accounts (Windows Vista, and Windows 8 only).
Do not use an account with ‘administrator’ privileges for everyday use, as malware could assumeadministrator rights. Even if you are the only user, set up an administrator account to use when you need to carry out tasks such as installing programs or changing the system configuration, and another ‘standard user’ account as your regular account. If you are not logged in as administrator, you will be prompted to enter an administrator password when you install a new device driver or program. You can manage user accounts in Windows Control Panel.