May 5 celebrates the 9th anniversary of World Password Day. Intel created World Password Day to educate individuals on the importance of strong passwords. Today and every day, employees should be reminded to use strong passwords and keep those passwords secure.
Password hacking or password guessing may be a first step of cybercriminals to access an employer’s system. According to security experts, strong password policy recommendations include:
- Use Multifactor Authentication where possible. This adds an extra layer of protection to website access.
- Do not write passwords on paper.
- Use complex, unique passwords for each site. Passwords should not be repeated among different sites, should not be able to be guessed, and should be changed periodically.
- Use password manager programs. These programs relegate long, random passwords that cannot be guessed.
- Do not use people’s or pets’ names, key dates (birthdays) or common words as passwords.
- Passwords should include a combinations of letters, characters, upper case and lowercase and numbers.
- If a password manager cannot assign a password, use at complex, random passwords with a minimum of 8 characters. 12-20 character passwords are best. A strong password will look like a series of random characters.
Employers should remind employees about password safety as part of an ongoing security program.
