Broadcasting your password on national television may be the easiest way to invite hackers, but common password mistakes make it almost as easy for your data security to be compromised.

Password safety may not be one of the most interesting topics in the realm of cybersecurity, but having a strong password is one of the easiest ways to protect your business’ data integrity. The importance of a robust password has been emphasized by many experts, yet often users who think that they are utilizing a secure password are actually opening themselves up to attacks. You may not be broadcasting your password on national television, but if your password falls into one of the following categories, you could be just as vulnerable to hackers.

Short and Simple

Short, simple passwords may be easy to remember, but they are also easy to guess. In general, the longer a password is, the harder it is for hackers to break it. Each additional character that you add to your password increases the possible combination of letters, numbers and symbols exponentially. Remember that hackers tend to go after low-hanging fruit, so any steps that you take to make your password harder to crack increases the likelihood that someone trying to break in will move on to the next target instead.

Lacking in Numbers or Symbols

Letters-only passwords may be more intuitive for you–but they are for hackers as well. Just as adding additional characters to your password exponentially increases the number of the possible combinations, so does using numbers and symbols in addition to letters. Just think about it: using letters, symbols and numbers means that each character in your password has almost twice as many options as if you only use letters.

Based on Personal Information

As highlighted in the clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live, using personal information such as a pet’s name or a birthday is incredibly common. Including personal details in your password, however, makes you very vulnerable to hacking. You may think that “Fido111379” is secure and difficult to guess, but blog posts discussing your dog or Facebook comments wishing you a happy birthday can broadcast your personal details to anyone who cares enough to look for them.

Simplistic Patterns

Being able to remember your password is, of course, necessary and utilizing a pattern might seem to be an easy solution to commit it to memory. Complex patterns that use letters, numbers and symbols within a long password are not a security risk. However, most people who use patterns in their password rely on overly simplistic ones, and this makes you vulnerable to hackers, particularly if your password is short. One particular type of pattern that you must avoid is keyboard-based patterns, such as “123qwe” or “1qaz2wsx.”

Worried that your business’ data might be vulnerable to hackers? The experts at {city}’s {company} can help you evaluate your security procedures to see if you have any glaring holes. Contact us today at {phone} or {email} to learn more.

Used by permission

Criminals want your company’s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell.

Cyber crime is a huge endeavor with severe consequences for organizations that are victimized. Criminals want your company’s financial data, customer lists including credit card information, intellectual property, and anything else they can sell.

Besides the immediate impact on your business’ ability to operate (for example ransomware can shut you down), there are significant costs associated with a data breach. These costs include:

• Potential fines from regulatory agencies for failure to protect personal identification data (PI) or personal financial information (for example a credit card number). Some fines have been in million dollar multiples.
• The cost of notifying all persons and businesses that had their data breached.
• Costs of providing credit monitoring and identity theft protection for all involved.
• The potential cost of defending a class action lawsuit against your company for failure to adequately protect sensitive information.
• Loss of customers
• Loss of business reputation
• Inability to attract new customers or clients

Following are Best Practices for securing your computer system and company data.

Best Practices for Computer System Protection

The following list is the Best Practices for keeping your business’ computer system, programs, and data, safe from prying eyes.

1. Make sure your firewall is on so that intruders cannot access your system from the internet.
2. Install security software and keep it updated.
3. Filter all email for computer viruses.
4. The more popular a program used by your business is, the more appealing it is a target for cyber criminals. Criminals know that many users do not regularly patch their programs against malware infections, so popular programs give them a wider pool for targeting. Make sure that your computer programs are updated as soon as a security patch is released.
5. Exercise caution when using free 3^rd party software claiming they check for software updates. Free software may be bundled with malicious software.
6. Instruct employees that they should never open emails from unknown senders since they might be a source of infection to your company’s computer system. Attached malware might be anything from a virus to ransomware.
7. Tell your employees they should check with senders they know if an email has a suspicious attachment. A phone call to the sender can help avoid the consequences of a data breach.
8. Inform employees they should not open websites they are not familiar with and they should make sure the address bar is the site they want to visit. A random click could take them to a website that is just waiting to download malware onto your company computer system.
9. Buy your software from a reputable buyer and never use pirated software as it may be infected with malware.
10. Before using thumb drives and other portable media, scan them with security software to ensure they are virus free.

Computer security may surpass your company’s IT capabilities. Accordingly, consider a computer managed services provider with a strong background in computer security. For more information about managed services and how an MSP can help your company contact {company} in {city}. {phone} or contact us by {email}.