Are you wondering why it’s still problematic for most businesses to keep online assets and critical information protected even in this day and age? Believe it or not, cyber-attacks are here to stay as long as organizations fail to make necessary efforts in securing their key business accounts.
The best way to deal with this issue is to learn about and adopt enterprise password management best practices.
The average cost of all data breaches across different industries reached a staggering amount of 3.86m USD globally in 2020?
That’s mainly because most businesses still don’t understand the increased significance of securing critical information, especially key account credentials.
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Managing passwords on an organizational level are far more challenging than it is for private accounts. Also, using manual or physical methods only increases the possibility of human error and online theft.
Why Businesses Fail to Protect their Key Accounts
With the increasing number of cloud-based applications, each employee has to manage hundreds of different accounts, requiring unique usernames and secure passwords.
Understandably, many workers rely on using the same password time and time again for multiple accounts for convenience reasons. This helps hackers to break into other accounts as well once they crack open these weak passcodes.
Some of the common reasons companies experience a breach of sensitive material include:
- Storing and sharing passcodes over unsecured platforms, like email, Slack, cloud databases, spreadsheets, and more
- Hackers using malicious software or malware exploiting unsecured internet connections, also called brute-force attacks
- Organizations having careless or mischievous insiders aiding in credentials-related thefts, causing businesses significant losses
- Unintended human errors such as using weak passwords, sending sensitive info to the wrong recipient, sharing account info with the unknown, and falling for phishing scams mainly via emails
Due to increased cyber-attacks, firms have now started to invest in various types of corporate password management software per commercial requirements. The reason is to maximize business security while providing employees with increased peace of mind.
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These specialized tools help firms keep corporate information safe without having to manually store and share complex passwords for each account.
Enterprise Password Management Best Practices
Even if everything’s going according to plan and you’ve had no prior cyber-attack history in your company, you still need not take the risk easy. You never know when your vital data falls into the wrong hands.
Some of the most compelling reasons why your enterprise requires effective password management include accountability, ease of use, and connectivity concerns.
Having access to an enterprise password manager is one thing; knowing how to use it efficiently is another. Many users don’t know how to create, store, manage and organize their passwords properly.
If you’re one of them, it’s time to learn about the latest password security trends in order to protect your assets against unauthorized access and potential information breach.
Here’s how you can improve your business security through enterprise password management best practices:
Use Multifactor Authentication (MFA)
Multifactor authentication (MFA) usually refers to the password of your choice and the code you receive through email or text message for login purposes. However, in some cases, it may also represent a fingerprint scanner or face recognition.
Though MFA isn’t an entirely fool-proof process, cybercriminals still would need physical access to your device in order to hack into your account in a majority of the cases.
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Restrict Login Attempts
One of the best ways to counter unauthorized access to your system is to limit the total number of login attempts. So, it’s best to reduce the number of unsuccessful passwords attempts for system access at every important device at your firm.
The fewer available tries, the fewer the hackers will have chances to try new passwords.
Lock Accounts Immediately After Certain Unsuccessful Attempts
Not only should you restrict the login attempts at various gateways, but you must also lock the accounts after a specific number of unsuccessful attempts on them by the outsiders.
This way, the unauthorized person or a hacker will have no other option than to give up on their futile attempt.
Go for Unusual Secret Questions & Answers
From LinkedIn to Twitter and Facebook, social media profiles are a goldmine regarding personal information. As a result, many users carelessly choose an easy question like a favorite book or movie.
Hackers have a prying eye when it comes to stealing personal information, and your social profile is on the top of their lists. So they might easily guess some of the secret questions selected by you and answer them quickly.
For this reason, you must always use information known to a very few people or provide answers to questions only known by you.
Invest In the Right Enterprise Password Manager
If your current vault technology is difficult to use, avoid all the hassle by investing in the enterprise password management tool specifically designed for your teams.
The best password manager is the one that lets you keep, share, and manage multiple passwords to help protect your company’s privacy and security without you having to memorize all of the passcodes.
You don’t have to physically present at a designated workstation to retrieve valuable data anymore. Modern password managers let you access your credentials from anywhere in the world using the cloud.
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With assigned user roles, you can enjoy an easy and secure password-sharing facility among your team members for increased collaboration.
Conclusion
To ensure the maximum safety of your firm’s vital data, companies will have to become more proactive in nurturing a culture of cybersecurity acknowledgment.
When you bring everyone onboard regarding enterprise password management best practices, you create a win-win situation for everyone. So, bring all of your key stakeholders and keep them engaged as part of your ongoing IT and network awareness program.