let
Welcome to the digital age, and we do everything online. While some things are now more convenient, we have all run into another nightmare. Too many passwords! Websites usually require the following: an upper and lower case letter, a number, special character, and minimum 8 characters! Are you the person who uses the same password everywhere?
Are your sharing passwords with staff? Many companies are moving work to the “Cloud” suddenly staff needs access to websites and shared passwords. Is your level of frustration rising each day?
If you own a smaller company your employees are probably reaching out asking for a password to access something. Once you have shared your password, you have now put your data at risk. Will you remember to change it? Is it one of those easy-to-remember passwords that one employee can recite to the next employee? No one was ready for the current crisis. Most businesses did not have a plan in place for twenty (or 50 or 100) remote employees.
You do need something better than your favorite sports team’s name followed by a number. Remember there is not some guy is not locked in a dark room trying to guess your password. Today it is a computer trying to guess your password, a computer can manage permutations of numbers fast!
So, what is the solution? The best option is multi-factor authentication (MFA) or two-factor authentication. Unfortunately, not all cloud providers utilize MFA functionality. A good alternate solution is a password manager or password vault.
Take some time today and Google “password manager.” There are plenty of great options, one I like to use is called LastPass. Managers are nice, you need to remember one password to access the vault and you can access from many different devices. A password manager can store more than just your passwords, they can store information like credit card and drivers license numbers. Hopefully, you are not the person who uses the same password for everything.
Download a password vault today and start using it today. A vault will easily generate complex passwords, store links to the sites you use, and auto-fill usernames and passwords. Best feature vaults encrypt your data, so it is a whole lot safer than writing them down or reusing them.