World Password Day

Are still using your dog’s name as part of your password for important logins? That’s not going to cut it in this world of security breaches at some of the largest organizations in the world. It’s time to power up to long, secure passwords and a robust password management strategy.

World Password Day is the first Thursday of May. It was created by Intel to address the critical need to protect identity theft and minimize cybercrimes. It’s the perfect time to address your current cyber-hygiene and make a commitment to adopting best practices throughout the year.

While electronic devices have evolved to include biometrics and two-factor authentication, the password remains the primary tool to protect private information. It’s also the link in the security chain that hackers are most likely to target.

Best Practices for Password Security

Long, Complex Passwords

Short passwords remain the easiest way for hackers to gain access to private information. The National Cyber Security Center reported that “123456” is one of the most commonly used passwords and the first one tried by many hackers. As amazing as in may seem, “123456” was identified in over 23 million breached passwords.

Most websites, and companies such as Google and Microsoft, require you to use passwords of at least eight characters with a mixture or letters, numbers, caps and special characters. Long passwords with special characters take exponentially longer to crack. While an eight character password offers good protection, longer is better.

Use a Different Password for Each Account

The 2018 Global Password Security Report confirms that 50 percent of users use the same passwords for their personal and work accounts. If a hacker is able to gain access to one password from a low security account, they will use the same one to try to log in to sources of financial information. Using different passwords for all logins eliminates this risk.

Multi-factor Authentication

For all passwords used to access information in the cloud it’s important to use two-factor authentication. This might entail receiving a text message to confirm your login attempt or answering security questions.

Use a Password Manager

A good password manager is a critical piece of security hygiene. We recommend DataVault Password Manager for the following reasons.

DataVault includes a password generator so you can create long, complex passwords of up to 64 characters in one click.

The password generator in DataVault facilitates creating and changing passwords, making it easy to use unique passwords for all your logins.

DataVault provides ten fields and notes which allow you to store additional information like answers to security questions that may be needed for multi-factor login.

Many popular password managers store your information on a centralized server which becomes a honeypot for the world’s best hackers. To eliminate this risk, Ascendo developed the Distributed Security Model for Password Management. With DataVault, your confidential information is stored on your device, not on a server. You own it.

A hacker could still try to break into your information but they would have to gain access to your device and breach several layers of sophisticated security to access one account. But why would they, when with the same effort, they could access millions of accounts for a password keeper using a central repository?

On this World Password Day, we invite you to get peace of mind with DataVault Password Manager get peace of mind. Try DataVault Password Manager for iOS, Android, Mac or Windows.

Marc Bolh
CEO Ascendo
@marcbolh