Lazy Passwords are Putting Your Business at Risk

Lazy Passwords are Putting Your Business at Risk

Passwords are a pain.

No one enjoys trying to remember login credentials for upwards of one hundred unique sites and services. More to the point, no one can remember 100+ unique sets of credentials, which leads to all sorts of other awful security problems (do not worry, we will discuss them in a minute).

Thankfully, innovative technologies are on the way or already here that either do away with the password entirely or add additional layers of security. But these new elements — passkeys, single sign-on, passwordless, and so on — have their issues, and they aren’t yet available for every system, service, and account that you have a password for currently.

Someday we will live in a post-password utopia. But we are not there yet.

For now, password managers are the best near-universal solution for solving the security and access problems passwords create. This article is all about password managers—why you need one, what is at stake for businesses that do not rein in poor password use, and which password managers are worth your time.

Understand the Risks of Poor Password Use

As we said at the start, passwords can be a pain. They are hard for humans to remember and easy for machines to guess. Even worse, no one can legitimately remember hundreds of username and password combinations. So, what do most users do? They use unsafe shortcuts to overcome this hurdle.

Some people write down all their important passwords in a notebook or leave them on a sticky note under their keyboards. The problem here is that absolutely anyone who might have physical access to your space could easily steal every password. All it takes is a single smartphone camera snap, and every account listed could be compromised.

Others create one or two passwords that are easy for them to remember, then reuse those passwords across dozens of different sites and systems. Most people — around 90 percent to one survey — know that this is dangerous, yet almost 60 percent admit to doing it anyway.

The trouble here is that if criminals manage to steal your username and password anywhere (through a data breach, a phishing attack, or anything else), then chances are good they now know your password everywhere — including sensitive accounts like your bank and your corporate logins. And when our email addresses are used as usernames, the problem is even worse!

Do not be lazy when it comes to your security. Reach out today at 877-686-6642 to learn about our password manager options that work best for your business.

‍