In so many cases we encounter offices that have little to no password protection on their internal computer systems, let alone their mobile devices, servers, wireless access points.
Changing or starting a password policy for an organization is not easy, and will be met with lots of resistance, especially if users can now use blank passwords or short ones. This is something that you should evaluate, and it is really of the utmost importance. No single change can have as much impact on the security of your networks, workstations or mobile devices.
You can immediately improve the security of your networks by creating a logical password policy for a select group of individuals. A prime target for such a policy are system and network administrators. IT admins and their management should be receptive to changes that will improve information security. It all takes a little work, but it can significantly improve the security of one of your company’s most valuable assets: your data.
You can spearhead change by making the adoption of a strong password policy the result of working together to improve security. Working out ways to strengthen the policy without making it overly difficult to adhere to will make it easier to obtain and implement a stronger organization-wide password policy.
Here are a few examples of good and bad passwords:
Bad passwords: 123456, password, (your mothers maiden name), (you pet’s name), simple english words that could be found in a dictionary, abc123
Good password: pop7ar7s (the word “poptarts” with 7s substituted for the Ts)
Better password: juTGw34tY67xc8 (random characters, letters and numbers)
Insanely strong password: Tuivlq7+QQy6$u!KbTXr5%9vD (many random characters, letters, numbers and special characters) Commander Data would be proud!
At Mac Outpost we can assist your company in starting down this path to greater security for your data.
