The truth is password cracking is easier than you think. Research shows that 90% of employee passwords can be cracked in only a few hours. 

The shorter and simpler passwords are, the easier they are to be broken.  Strong passwords have over 6 characters and contain at least three of the following groups: uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.

Long passwords with a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols can be cracked.

One experiment by Ars Technica Deputy Editor, Nate Anderson, reveals how important it is to take passwords seriously.  Anderson was a password cracking newbie and downloaded a list of over 16,000 cryptographically hashed passwords.  Within hours, he managed to decipher almost half of them.  If you think Anderson’s 47% success rate is impressive, imagine what expert password crackers can do.

Tips to for Better Password Protection

At CopperTree, we care about the success of your business so we put together a list of tips to help you ensure your online data is secure:

1. Implement an ‘effective password policy,’ that outlines minimal password length and complexity requirements.
2. Use different passwords for each account. Remember if you have one password for everywhere and someone steals this password, you’re in trouble!
3. Avoid using your phone number, your birthdate, names of family members, as well as words that can be found in a dictionary.
4. Renew your passwords frequently.  We recommend changing your password every 6 months.
5. Install password managing software.  Password managers allow you to hide all of your passwords in one database, locked by a key file or master password — or for even more security you can combine both methods. This means that you only have to remember one single password.  There are a number of these tools available on the market, KeePass is a free open source option that uses the most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish).

Contact CopperTree to help you set up your business’ password managing software.

CopperTree Solutions is there to provide Strength Beyond IT

Call (519) 804-2461 or email us at Colin.Shantz@ctsol.ca