Without a doubt businesses today are being run in the cloud - many emerging businesses are even 100% cloud. Goodbye file servers and hardware, and hello cloud applications and web services. With the rise of cloud applications, comes a headache for individuals attempting to remember numerous user names and passwords and even greater complications for businesses managing new security vulnerabilities.
How did this problem sneak up on us so quickly? Are our businesses really at risk? With this move to the cloud, passwords take centre stage. Poor employee password habits or a lack of business processes can leave organizations deeply vulnerable in more than a number of ways:
1. Forgetting to remove employee access to an application when an employee leaves
2. Writing passwords down on paper
3. Keeping passwords in an unsecure spreadsheet or file folder
It’s easy to fall prey to these bad habits. With so many passwords to remember we default to simple and often repeated passwords. We choose the worst ones, with our names, numeric patterns, and personally identifiable (and easily guessable) details. Users share passwords over e-mail to share an account to get things done faster. Admins forget to disable unused accounts or accounts of terminated employees because they just don’t find the time. The reality is these bad habits, of both individuals and businesses, put company data at high risk and can be costly in the aftermath.
Check out the infographic below for some quick password security highlights.
Infographic sources:
1. The World’s First Computer Password? It Was Useless Too
2. Your Birthday Is a Terrible Password
3. Password Security: What Users Know and What They Actually Do
4. 47 Stats You Need to Know About the Google Apps Ecosystem
5. Seven Stats About The Future of BYOD
6. Data Leakage Worldwide: Common Risks and Mistakes Employees Make
7. Salesforce, Google, Amazon Cloud Winners, Says Piper; Microsoft Straddles the Line
8. The future of cloud computing: 5 predictions
9. BYOA
10. Experian Data Breach Resolution Advises Small Businesses to Be Prepared For a Data Breach
11. Sony Kept Thousands of Passwords in a Folder Named "Password"
12. How many apps do you use a month? Study shows the average is 26 [Poll]
13. The Ex-Employee Menace
14. Computer Changes in the 1980's
15. Worldwide PC Market
16. Windows 3.1
17. Worst passwords of 2014 are just as terrible as you'd think
1. The World’s First Computer Password? It Was Useless Too
2. Your Birthday Is a Terrible Password
3. Password Security: What Users Know and What They Actually Do
4. 47 Stats You Need to Know About the Google Apps Ecosystem
5. Seven Stats About The Future of BYOD
6. Data Leakage Worldwide: Common Risks and Mistakes Employees Make
7. Salesforce, Google, Amazon Cloud Winners, Says Piper; Microsoft Straddles the Line
8. The future of cloud computing: 5 predictions
9. BYOA
10. Experian Data Breach Resolution Advises Small Businesses to Be Prepared For a Data Breach
11. Sony Kept Thousands of Passwords in a Folder Named "Password"
12. How many apps do you use a month? Study shows the average is 26 [Poll]
13. The Ex-Employee Menace
14. Computer Changes in the 1980's
15. Worldwide PC Market
16. Windows 3.1
17. Worst passwords of 2014 are just as terrible as you'd think
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