Five Password Rules Every User Should Follow

Our SMB Blogger Paul Mah is always reminding you how important proper training is for small and medium-sized businesses. This is especially true when it comes to proper security practices for staffers. Passwords are typically the first line of defense against unauthorized access, and Paul highlights some pointers about password management that all employees should know about. (To get a complete overview of these tip, be sure to check out Paul’s blog post.)

Hopefully, knowing why certain policies are enacted will prompt employees to follow them. In this slideshow, Paul highlights five aspects of good password management that employees should know about.

Click through for five great tips that every user should know about the first line of network defense.

Employees need to know that a short password can be very quickly compromised.This can be done by calculating the permutations based on the length of the password, as well as whether numerals and symbols are used.

It is generally a very bad idea to use the same password for different accounts.However, it would be naive for an administrator to think that the typical employee would use a different password for every system that requires one.

This sounds almost cliche now, but the IT department should periodically remind employees that its staff will never ask for their passwords.

When it comes to pre-empting possible breaches in security though, it’s better for employees to come forward if they suspect their accounts are compromised or confidential data has been illegally accessed than to find out on the front page of the morning papers.

Employees are also increasingly accessing their work accounts from remote locations, so users need to be educated on the necessity of changing their passwords regularly.Note, however, that there is a difference between regularly and frequently, and it is important not to overdo the frequency of changes.