One area you can work on to protect from cyber attacks: passwords
According to a report*, 8,459,060,239 passwords got leaked in a hacker forum.
What this means is that it has become easier for hackers to identify the passwords we use.
Another report found that the recent breach at Colonial Pipes that paralysed the gas distribution in the US for a few days, until the ransom was paid, that the hackers got a common password the company used.
Colonial used the same password for all VPN users.
And the password ended up in Dark Web.
It was easy for the hackers to get the VPN password and carry out a cyberattack on Colonial.
Even if you have not taken all the measures to protect your computer network from cyberattacks, please strengthen your password by doing these:
1. Make all passwords complex.
2. Don’t use any password in more than one place.
3. Change the password periodically (e.g. 90 days)
4. Use two-factor authentication for all the applications
5. Get a good password manager that can help with two-factor authentication
6. Avoid using common/shared email addresses
7. Don’t let the internet browser save the passwords – use your password manager
8. Don’t use the same password for the administrator of all the computers on the network.
Passwordless logins are ideal (using fingerprint scan or retina scan, for example).
Hackers do break the two-factor authentication or complex password, if necessary.
However, proper password management is better than having poor passwords across your organisation.
