Security Breach! It Could be as Easy as “1...2...3...”

​By Thomas Stooke, WebLan Systems 
Think about the most important business information you hold. Chances are, that knowledge, document, bank account, or email account is protected in some way by a password. Passwords have been around a long time – a secret, known only to you or a chosen few – which controls access to some privileged resource. 

​That said, we rely on passwords perhaps a bit too heavily. Based on a Google/Harris Poll conducted February 2019 in the USA, while most people are confident in the safety of their private information, 65% of individuals re-used the same password for multiple accounts. 13% of people used only one password for all their accounts. 

It is easy to see how the compromise of one service can lead to a domino effect where many other accounts an employee holds could be compromised as the result of a totally unrelated security breach, growing eventually to potentially impact a user’s email or other privileged access to your business. 
While you can’t control what happens with password re-use, and while password quality can be difficult to enforce, you can take steps to protect your business and employees from unauthorized access. One of the best tools we have for this today is Multi-Factor Authentication. When we insist on a second factor to verify your identity, we prevent unauthorized access to systems even when your password is known. This second factor could be a text message, a hardware token, an app on a cell phone, or even a fingerprint. 
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If you’re using Office 365 Business Premium or better today, you’ll be happy to hear that Multi-Factor Authentication is already included in your subscriptions. Give us a call to understand how we can use this and other security tools included in your Microsoft subscriptions to better secure your data. If you’re not already using these tools in your business, let us show you how we can deliver a modern, secure work environment, powered by Microsoft 365. ​

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