Remembering several passwords might be hard, but it’s vital for your digital security
(Picture: Tim van der Kuip on Unsplash)According to a report from Bitwarden, reported by TechRadar, 90 per cent of us reuse passwords in the workplace. That’s perhaps not surprising in the modern workplace, where the average employee uses various different pieces of software that all have their own accounts.
However, this leaves you vulnerable to having your accounts or devices accessed without your consent or even knowledge.
The survey also found that the majority of people (54 per cent) were still remembering passwords via documents on their computer, while 45 per cent just try to memorise them without any kind of external aid.
When it comes to sharing passwords, people’s secure habits also leave room for improvement, with 38% using shared online documents. Meanwhile, 41 per cent share communal passwords via email.
If you’ve ever quickly copied a password over to a colleague through Slack, email, or another form of digital communication, that leaves that password vulnerable to being picked up by someone outside your organisation.
To help you and your workplace stay safe online, here are some tips for securing your passwords.
How to protect devices and accounts with strong passwords
The best advice is to change passwords regularly and use strong and unique options. Google Password Manager can help you to come up with good examples, but these are usually long strings of numbers, letters, and punctuation that will be hard to remember.
Using password managers such as LastPass or Google Password Manager will save all your passwords into one secure account. This means that you need to remember only the login for these tools, and then you’ll be able to securely see all your other passwords.
Having a tool to remember all your accounts makes it easier to have different unique passwords for all the logins you need.
What’s more, you can update them regularly. Best practice is to change your passwords every three months. Set up a reminder in your calendar, or in your team’s calendar for any shared accounts, to make sure you don’t fall behind.
Above all else, avoid any obvious passwords. We are hopefully beyond the days of people using ‘password’ as their password (and most software providers or platforms don’t accept such obvious words anymore). However, also avoid using phrases that are obviously related to your business, such as ‘businessname2022’ or similar.
Whatever methods you use to improve workplace, be sure to communicate them to your colleagues. Your team’s security is only as strong as its weakest link, so make sure everyone is up to date on the latest developments.
