With ceaseless document sharing online through email, the Cloud, and countless other mediums on both company computers and personal mobile devices, threats to document security are at an all-time high. Any of your systems can be hacked by almost anyone with even minimum knowledge of computers, and any of your employees can devastate your company’s reputation in just a few seconds, by pressing just a few keys, and, either accidentally or intentionally, disclose private records to the wrong person.
So what should you, as a concerned business person, do to protect yourself and your company?
Well, what if you heard that the fastest, easiest way to secure all of your systems and documents was free? Would you be intrigued?
Here’s the secret, which really isn’t a secret:
Before anything else, do not disregard the magnitude of a smart password.
Even in 2014, passwords like ‘123456’, ‘abc123’, ‘qwerty’, ‘asdfgh’, ‘iloveyou’, and yes, even the notorious ‘password’, are appallingly common. Sure, we have excessive login information to remember for numerous programs and websites, from your phone, to your email, to social media, to your bank account, to an online shopping website account you made three years ago that you never actually bought anything from. Regardless, having an overly simplistic password, especially on important files or accounts, is inexcusable.
For a truly secure password, make sure you use at least eight characters. It should contain a mix of four different types of characters; upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters such as “!@#$%^&*,;”. If there is only one capital letter or special character, it should not be the first or last character in the password.
It should not be your name, your family member’s name, your pet’s name, any other name, a slang word, all adjacent letters, the name of the website or program you’re using, your e-mail address, nor any of the numbers in your social security number. A good rule of thumb with passwords is that if it’s hard for you to remember, it’s even harder for someone else to hack. Take this quick step to ensure your document security today.