Advanced password security can help protect your business from online attacks.  Organised crime online doesn’t necessarily just target big businesses or government agencies, they target smaller businesses as well – and unless you have sufficient security they can do significant damage, not only to the financial future of your business, but also the theft of sensitive documents that may contain copyrighted patents and other intellectual property.

Understanding what level of password security you need first begins with asking yourself what would the consequences be if someone hacked into your business systems?  Don´t take any chances and implement advanced password security solutions to protect your business.

Training Your Employees in Advanced Password Security
People are asked to create passwords every time they open an account on the internet. More often than not they choose a password that is easy for them to remember such as the birthday of a parent, spouse or child. Easy to remember passwords are also easy to hack passwords. This can pose a problem if you run a business that has multiple IT users creating their own passwords.

If you’re serious about security and expect your employees to make strong passwords, you must explain to them why advanced password security is important to the business and train them to create advanced passwords that they can remember.  Strong passwords combined with a mechanism that automatically locks someone out after a certain number of failed password attempts (usually three) are the crucial elements of advanced password security.

Elements of Advanced Password Security
It’s important to encourage people to choose strong passwords.  Having a system that will not accept a password unless it meets certain criteria is a great way to have advanced password security for your business.  Here are some recommendations for setting the system parameters for a strong password:

• minimum 12 characters
• upper case & lower case
• special characters
• include numbers

Most people already understand that these are the basic elements of a strong password, but they still need something that they can remember. For example, random letters and symbols such as “]-#u5$=Tq(r*” may meet the requirements of the system and is almost certainly a more advanced password than Mrfluffy78, but a person is obviously more likely to remember Mrfluffly78 over an apparently random sequence.

Substitutions and Passphrases
To resolve this problem you can use a technique of writing words but substituting letters in words for numbers or special characters for example, $3cret.0R@ng3 (secret.orange), or for something even more advanced 4pP13s&FrU!7 (Apples&Fruit). Thinking in terms of passphrases which include letter substitutions is much more memorable and is not too difficult to create. Training your employees to think critically about advanced password security solutions can make your business more secure and prevent against organised online crime.

Conclusion
Once your employees understand why creating a strong password is important and you have given them the necessary tools to make an advanced password they may even find that creating new passwords is good fun and gives them an opportunity to get creative.

Having a system that can stipulate the elements of a password and store information securely is only part of advanced password security solutions, but it is an effective means of protecting your business from organised online crime.

In some cases companies may seek professional support from IT providers, a company such as cheekymunkey.co.uk will be able to help in the construction of highly secure passwords.

Image Credits: fixedgear