Your First Security Countermeasure Is a Strong Password

Many business owners are unaware of the overwhelming amount of illicit and fraudulent activity online. In previous blogs, we discussed some of the most recent, sophisticated hacking schemes. But most hacks are simple. A program will run through different passwords until it guesses correctly and is granted entrance to your account.

What Are the Odds You Either Have Been or Will Be Hacked?

According to a recent study, 90% of businesses have suffered from some type of computer hack in the last year, and approximately 600,000 Facebook accounts are hacked each day. Much of this activity could be eliminated if businesses and consumers took some basic precautions. The first and easiest precaution to take is creating and maintaining strong passwords.

Why Do I Need a Complicated Password?

Simple, common passwords put food on the table for the hacking community. If any of the following is a password you use, it is a security breach waiting to happen:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty

Complicated passwords require significantly more time to crack than simple ones. For instance, identifying a 6-word, lowercase encryption takes just 10 minutes. A 7-digit, lowercase and uppercase password takes 23 days; An 8-digit password with alphanumeric entries, as well as symbols would take 463 years to breach. With the simple addition of some extra symbols, you can make your account unimpeachable.

Small Businesses Can Take Additional Security Precautions

As a managed service provider, we incorporate security with our suite of products. Dell SonicWALL has been our security specialist for years. Their server allows us to manage all of our firewalls easily and cost-effectively. Many of their products are perfectly suited to small and mid-sized firms and can be rapidly deployed.

When it comes to security, the weakest link is the only one that matters. We want to educate our customers about IT security to help the web become more safe and secure.