Celebrate Change Your Password Day

Strong passwords are a lynchpin of business cybersecurity. Your organization's cyber defenses are only as strong as your weakest password. According to the 2023 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), 86% of breaches involve stolen credentials. This Change Your Password Day, use the opportunity to educate employees on the latest best practices for setting secure passwords. Change Your Password Day is the perfect time to start making positive changes to improve your organization's password security.

Tips for Change Your Password Day

Not all passwords are created equal. Following simple rules will go a long way towards reducing the impact of weak, stolen, and mismanaged passwords. On Change Your Password Day, reinforce these password security essentials:

1. Length Matters

One of the fundamental principles of a secure password is adequate length. Given today's supercomputers that can crack 6-character passwords in seconds, longer passwords (a minimum of 12 characters) provide an additional layer of complexity, making it more challenging for attackers to hack into an account.  A password generator is an automated, secure tool that instantaneously creates long, randomized passwords. These complex passwords typically include uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters, making them harder to guess or crack through brute-force attacks. Generated passwords are not based on easily guessable patterns, making them more secure than passwords users might create. For reference, these are the top 10 most common passwords:

1. 123456
2. 123456789
3. qwerty
4. password
5. 12345
6. qwerty123
7. 1q2w3e
8. 12345678
9. 111111
10. 1234567890

Password generators save users time and effort while ensuring the passwords meet high-security standards. Users can specify the length, character types (uppercase, lowercase, numbers, special characters), and other parameters to align with organizational security policies. Using unique and random passwords for each account reduces the risks of credential reuse, ensuring that a compromise on one account does not jeopardize others.

2. Secure Storage is Key

Encourage employees to use a password manager to streamline and enhance their password security. A password manager like LastPass makes complex, generated passwords more achievable because users only need one master password to access and manage their account credentials for all other logins. Password managers offer several benefits that contribute to improved security, convenience, and overall user experience. In addition to integrated password generators to create strong and complex passwords, password managers store login information in an encrypted vault. A centralized platform helps users easily view, organize, and update passwords. Browser extensions automatically fill in login credentials for websites and applications. The tight browser integration saves time and reduces the likelihood of falling victim to phishing attacks by preventing users from entering passwords on fraudulent sites. While it may seem like "putting all of your eggs in one basket," a password manager significantly improves security through encryption and device-level security. Without access to the master password, the data remains inaccessible and unusable for attackers. Additionally, these tools often include features like two-factor authentication (2FA) for an added layer of security. Password managers often have features that analyze the strength of existing passwords and alert users to potential security vulnerabilities. This proactive approach helps users identify and update weak or compromised passwords promptly. In summary, password managers are crucial in promoting strong cybersecurity. On Change Your Password Day, emphasize the benefits of strong, unique passwords for every website while only remembering one master password with the help of a password manager like LastPass.

3. Security Dashboards Offer Visibility

Regularly monitoring the security of your passwords is crucial. On Change Your Password Day, leverage a Security Dashboard to assess your organization's security score and see how it aligns with your password policies. A password manager's security dashboard serves as a centralized hub for monitoring and enhancing the security of stored passwords, providing valuable insights into password strength and highlighting potential vulnerabilities. Regular check-ups allow for proactive measures, ensuring the identification of weak passwords and prompt updates to at-risk accounts.  Password managers like LastPass offer a Security Dashboard to evaluate password length, complexity, and uniqueness. The dashboard can calculate a comprehensive security score based on password strength, account security settings, and product usage, providing at-a-glance statistics on security at a user and organizational level. By offering insights into password security at the account level, including when they last updated the password, security dashboards can help users proactively identify and update weak or compromised credentials. Dashboard integration with dark web databases can also help identify passwords compromised in previous security incidents. Users can take immediate action, such as changing passwords or enabling additional security measures. Many security dashboards display the two-factor authentication (2FA) status for each account. Enabling 2FA adds an extra layer of security by requiring an additional verification step beyond the password. The dashboard can prompt users to enable 2FA and flag suspicious logins from unfamiliar locations or devices, allowing users or admins to take corrective actions like changing passwords or locking down an account.

4. Go Passwordless

Embrace passwordless authentication for the ultimate protection against unauthorized access. Passwordless authentication providers like LastPass eliminate the need for traditional passwords by replacing them with more secure and user-friendly methods, like biometrics or hardware tokens. On Change Your Password Day, explore passwordless authentication to enhance security and simplify the user experience while reducing the risk of password-related vulnerabilities. Passwordless authentication eliminates traditional passwords, reducing the risk of common attacks such as brute force, credential stuffing, and phishing. Passwordless methods rely on unique and inherently secure factors, minimizing the vulnerabilities associated with traditional password weaknesses and creating a significant barrier to unauthorized access. Passwordless authentication can incorporate 2FA for an extra layer of security by combining multiple factors such as biometrics, device recognition, or one-time passcodes. Some passwordless methods rely on the inherent security of the user's device, ensuring that only authorized devices can access an account.

Move security forward on Change Your Password Day

If your employees still need to implement the above password security best practices, Change Your Password Day is a timely reminder to reinforce them. You can significantly reduce credential-based breaches by implementing lengthy passwords, utilizing password managers, checking security dashboards, and exploring passwordless authentication. Strengthening your organization's password security with a solution like LastPass will better safeguard sensitive information in an increasingly complex cybersecurity landscape. Learn more here.