The year’s biggest data breaches don’t always involve credit card and Social Security numbers. Often, cybercriminals use data breaches to access fairly mundane information, such as email addresses and usernames.
This might not seem like a big deal—after all, a lot of people have your email address. However, each piece of data takes hackers one step closer to accessing your accounts. If they can manage to crack your secure passwords, they can steal financial information, company secrets, and other data that you want to be kept private.
Hackers might not even need to use software to crack your password and enter your account. All too often, people share passwords in unsafe ways. That makes it even easier for cybercriminals to steal your data.
Protect your accounts by starting a free trial with TeamPassword.
Why You Need a Safe Way to Share Passwords
Conventional wisdom says that you should update passwords once per business quarter. In reality, you should change them much more frequently. Hackers use sophisticated software that can test thousands of passwords an hour. The better their technology gets, the more often you need to update your passwords.
Generating passwords every few weeks will keep your accounts more secure. The downside, of course, is that you need to share passwords every time you change them. Otherwise, your team members will lose access to applications and accounts that they need to be productive.
Your business can’t function when employees and managers lose access to shared accounts. That means you need a secure way to share passwords while reducing the risk of someone stealing your information.
Start a free trial with TeamPassword, so you don’t need to worry about common mistakes that threaten your security.
Avoid These Common Mistakes When Sharing Passwords
People tend to make a lot of mistakes when they create and share passwords. Make sure your employees know to avoid these pitfalls.
Choosing Passwords That Colleagues Can Remember Easily
Secure passwords are hard to remember because they include a lot of random characters. The human brain does a great job at recognizing patterns. When it comes to random information, it struggles to remember even the first few characters.
This encourages most people to choose passwords that they and their colleagues can remember easily. It’s so much easier for every on the team to remember “thisisournewpassword1!” than “,k(,DyX2E_*&53Tt”.
When people don’t choose secure passwords, they make a hacker’s job much easier.
Sharing Passwords Through Chat or Spreadsheets
Sharing passwords through chat and spreadsheets makes sense from the perspective of convenience:
- A group chat seems like the easiest way to get new passwords to everyone who needs them.
- Spreadsheets create a central place to store the passwords for all accounts.
The benefits reveal the security problems. When you distribute passwords through group chat, you run the risk of including people who don’t have authorization to use the account. Also, a hacker who breaks into your chat will see the messages that contain all of your passwords.
Spreadsheets offer a treasure trove of information for cybercriminals. Anyone who breaks into your network—or simply stumbles upon a shared Google Spreadsheet—has all of your passwords in one convenient location.
Use a Password Manager With a Sharing Tool
As more people receive Covid-19 vaccines, workplaces are reopening. Unfortunately, just like the shift to remote work created security concerns, returning to the office raises potential problems.
As you update your accounts and passwords, you need to share the information with team members. A password manager offers the most secure way to distribute the new passwords to everyone.
A password manager stores all of a person’s account passwords in a central location. It doesn’t have the security problems of a spreadsheet, though, because it requires two-step verification. Before someone can access the new passwords, they need to log in to the password manager accounts with a password and a time-sensitive authentication code.
That extra step makes it much more challenging for hackers to steal your information. When you make yourself a difficult target, they move on to other companies with lighter security.
Share Passwords Safely With TeamPassword
TeamPassword has all of the features you need to generate passwords, log activity when employees and managers access accounts and share passwords securely with specific coworkers.
Get started with a free trial that lets you experience the security of TeamPassword so that you can make an informed decision.
