Why Do You Need A Strong Password Policy?

Weak passwords are an easy way for hackers to gain access to your IT system and wreak havoc. Cyber attacks can be extremely damaging to a business so prevention is always better than cure.

Having a strong password policy, which is enforced across your organisation is one defence against cyber crime.

Creating A Strong Password

A strong password is one which meets the following criteria:

• Is at least 8 characters long
• Does not contain any personal information – e.g. real name, user name, company name
• Is unique from any previously used passwords
• Does not contain any word spelled completely
• Does not contain consecutive keyboard combinations – e.g. qwerty or zxcvb
• Contains a mix of characters including uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and characters

Passwords should be updated every 60 days.

How To Remember A Strong Password

Complex passwords are extremely secure but can be hard to remember. Make sure you educate your staff not to write their passwords down and leave them taped to their monitor!

One of our favourite tricks for creating and remembering a password is to come up with a random sentence that you can remember e.g.

“My first house I ever rented was 269 Made Up Road. Rent was £400 per month.”

You can then turn that into a password by using the first digits of each word, so your password would become:

mFhIerw269MUr.Rw£4pm.

Failing this you can implement password management software to enable users to securely record and store their passwords.