Cybersecurity for Business | Part 1

Educating yourself never stops, nor does CyberSecurity for your organization. We hope you take the few minutes to review our security talking points.

As your trusted IT partner, we wanted to take a moment to speak to the ever-growing discussion regarding passwords. 

As technology becomes an integral part of business and our personal lives, employees are faced with the challenge of managing all their passwords.

What would be the typical outcome?

In 2012, the average user managed 6.5 passwords. By 2016, this average increased to 25 accounts. As social media as well as businesses expand products and services, this number continues to grow exponentially. With so many accounts to manage, users rely on a few habits to help them manage so many passwords. This includes writing passwords on a sticky note or in a notebook and which is often left in a convenient place, such as at their desk. Additionally, employees begin reusing the same password between websites or slightly modifying the same core password. For example, Summer17! and Summer18!. If a password is successfully phished, the same password could be used to access any number of websites where passwords may have been reused.

In a recent report¹, it was discovered that 1/3 users reuse at least one password. Over 50% of users reuse and modify the same password.

Weak passwords are commonly used because they are easier to remember. Paired with the reuse of passwords, this leads to further security risks.

Okay, but I hate passwords! As mentioned previously, since the average person manages so many accounts, users tend to rely on passwords that are convenient, easy to type and remember. Below are the top 10 worst passwords for 2017²:

123456	123456789
password	letmein
12345678	1234567
qwerty	football
12345	iloveyou

If you are using any of the passwords listed above, we’d highly recommend changing them today! For additional insights on improving passwords and usage look for part 2 of this series next week.

1 The Next Domino to Fall: Empirical Analysis of User Passwords across Online Services [Research Study] http://people.cs.vt.edu/gangwang/pass.pdf
2 SplashData’s Top 100 Worst Passwords of 2017 https://s13639.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Top-100-Worst-Passwords-of-2017a.pdf