“32% of employees admit to having logged into an online account that belonged to their previous employer after they left.”

… and how many more wouldn’t admit it?

Password management is critical to digital security, and we mistakenly often don’t focus on it, which is silly given almost half of all cyber attacks are aimed at small business. The goods news is it is easy to manage your passwords, but there is a safe and an unsafe way to do it. Let’s go through all your options:

Have the same password for most things

This is common practice but certainly not best practice. In fact, this is clearly the wrong approach in todays online world where a third party’s hack may expose your credentials and, if they are similar to your other credentials, will create instant vulnerability.

Let staff manage their own logins

This is where you hope your staff a) keep their logins safe and b) don’t leave the business without passing on the logins. Leaving staff to create their own passwords also allows for the same password to be used throughout their various platforms, increasing vulnerability should the password be stolen or breached.

Keep everything locked up tight and use complex passwords

This one sounds great in theory… but having long complex passwords will undoubtedly result in them being written down, saved in a spreadsheet, or staff simply selecting ‘save login’ resulting more exposure of the password.

Use a password manager

you are on the money with this option! Once you understand how a password manager works, you will understand the value and security in using a password manager.  Mostly used for almost all passwords, perhaps keeping your banking and most personal ones committed to memory but letting the password manager look after the multitude of web portals and platforms we all log into these days.

There are a range of advantages for your business when using a password manager. You are keeping your logins central to one secure place where they are professionally encrypted which reduces your risk of credential phishing and hacks.

You also do not need to rely on your memory (how often do you forget and reset?), or have your passwords written down in a spreadsheet or some other unencrypted, easily-hacked document.

Instead, your passwords will be stored in an encrypted database secured behind one master password (that’s the one you can keep in your head). Once you have entered your various credentials into the vault you will only need to know your master password.

Ready to live the password manager life?

If you’ve got questions, we hear you. Managing our passwords is an important task and not something we want to get wrong. Have a chat with us at info@allcoveredit.com.au or (07) 5528 6663.

Otherwise, if you are on on the start line with engines at the ready, we recommend LastPass Password Manager for secure, safe and simple password management.