Every day, thousands of malicious emails, documents, links, bots and users launch a variety of attacks against organizational and personal networks. Our community and organizational infrastructure, including both employees and students, are potentially exposed, daily, to various information security threats while at work, when using social media, or accessing personal accounts.
Strong, unique passwords are an important part of Information Security Defense and one which each of us has a responsibility to make use of as Employees. Even if other parts of our system are breached, a password could act as a last line of defense for our sensitive information or confidential data. When combined with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) strong passwords can thwart these routine attacks and protect ourselves, our organization and our students from compromise.
Some of the primary benefits of creating strong, unique passwords are:
- Protects your personal and official information
- Secures mobile devices
- Acts as a digital self-defense
- Safeguards information sharing cycle
- Prevents break-ins and loss of valuable emails, employee information, images, documents, and financial records
Here are some recommendations from information security and IT experts:
- never disclose passwords to third party users
- update your access code frequently
- don’t use previously used passwords
- never share login credentials via email
- set central policies that enforce password complexity, history, and change frequency
- use two- or multi-factor authentication wherever it is available
- don’t select the “remember me” option for saving login information on multiple sites
- never reuse passwords across multiple sites or services – if one site gets breached, you could be hacked elsewhere if you use the same credentials
- never write down your passwords – consider a virtual password locker software
Password hygiene is a small, but important part of Information Security at Coast Mountain College.