Identity Management Day, launched in 2021 by the National Cybersecurity Alliance, aims to educate businesses on the importance of identity management, with a focus on the risks involved in not properly securing and safeguarding identity and access credentials. When 79% of organizations have experienced an identity related breach in the last two years, Identity Management Day is the perfect opportunity to assess how and if your business and employees are being identity smart.
Not sure where to start to be identity smart? Let’s explore three best practices that can help secure your employees’ digital identities – all year round. Let’s dive in.
Educate your employees
Before exploring the tools that can secure your employees’ identities, an important first step in in fostering an identity-smart business is to educate and train employees on the what, how, and why of cybersecurity threats they may face in their daily work.
This training shouldn’t be one and done. Your business should craft a long-term strategy for employee learning, one that is not only impactful but adaptable and integrated into employees’ everyday activities. Your IT department is an important resource when creating and updating these training materials to reflect the latest developments in cyber threats.
Phishing, one of the most well-known forms of social engineering, should be top of mind, especially since 81% of businesses have seen an increase in phishing this past year. Phishing cuts right to the heart of being identity smart – faking a known source to trick the recipient into clicking on a malicious link or divulging sensitive information.
Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is all about identity – and keeping that identity safe. MFA adds authentication factors to verify a user’s identity before approving their access to systems, networks, programs, and services. A factor is a piece of data - something you know, something you have, and something you are - that helps prove identity. When using MFA, employees must first provide something they know (a password), something they have (mobile phone), and something they are (biometrics).
Enabling MFA at your businesses adds a layer of security that can prevent unauthorized access to employees’ accounts. The more security layers you wrap around your business, the better protected you'll be. The additional factors required with MFA are exponentially more difficult for hackers to copy, steal, or otherwise manipulate, protecting your business against ransomware attacks, phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, credential stuffing, and brute force attacks.
Use a password manager
62% of employees reuse passwords across accounts, meaning that they’re inadvertently creating a chain of vulnerabilities across your business. Password reuse increases the risk of unauthorized access to critical business systems, confidential information, and sensitive data. What can your business do to keep employee identities secure?
A password manager does the work of creating, remembering, and filling in passwords for accounts, storing them in an encrypted vault. Employees need only to remember one master password to access the password manager, eliminating the need to memorize multiple passwords. A password manager also comes with a robust admin dashboard that makes it easier for your IT team to manage password security across the organization, making sure the right users have the right access at the right time.
This Identity Management Day, equip your employees with the right education and tools to keep their identities secure in a challenging breach landscape. Do your part and be identity smart.
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