Stop home working break-ins by cyber crooks

Two in five workers have not been provided with adequate online security training while working from home, new research reveals.

And 60% of businesses don’t demand strong passwords for employees logging into their systems, says a software company poll.

So it’s no wonder more than half of businesses have seen a rise in cyber crime since the shift to home working accelerated by the pandemic.

Eight out of 10 breaches of security were linked to weak passwords.

Today Specops Software, which carried out the research, shares its tips on how businesses can improve password security within their organisation.

1. Password strength

As well as a minimum number of characters, upper and lower case letters, symbols and numbers – and firms should looks at forcing users to regularly change them and storing password history to avoid the re-use of old ones.

Also it’s wise to ensure you have proper data encryption so it remains safe even if a breach happens.

2. Security lockdown

Make sure you have automatic lockdown for logins after several failed attempts.

This will stop crooks being able to guess passwords by trying different popular combinations.

3. Deactivate profiles

Profiles for employees who have left should be immediately deactivated and any shared passwords they had access to should also be changed as soon as possible.

4. Additional protection layers

Include methods such as login confirmation via codes sent to emails or mobiles or one-time passwords for extra security where possible.

5. Proper personal training

No matter what innovative protection algorithms you use in your company, if staff insist on keeping passwords in a text document on their desktop – or, even worse, written down somewhere, then all other security measures are likely to fail.

So it’s wise to invest in cyber security training to teach your staff the basics of information protection. This could turn out to be time and money well spent.