Ideal Password Policy

Passwords perform a primordial task of safeguarding thousands of public and private data alike. More so, it enforces the observance of proper behavior and decent activities particularly among users and safeguards them against possible losses and damages of all files. But of course, we have to face the reality that we are living in a generation where almost everyone, if not all, knows how to use, reset, and worst is hack passwords. Life in this era is rapidly changing so much that the security system is now embedded with intruder alerts. These alerts, however, can be avoided and avoiding these alerts entails one fundamental requirement: your system has to have an ideal password policy.

For some organizations that are not that inclined yet to password securities, it is not too late to update their systems. They can still make changes in their systems to block accesses from outsiders or intruders. Setting up an ideal password could be a useful tool to block undesirable accesses. What then is an ideal password?

In order for an organization to get started in creating an ideal password, they have to ensure that their passwords are long enough so intruders could hardly retrieve it. An eight-to-ten password characters could be an option and with this length, the organization can even set passwords that are phrases or even sentences. These are what you call “pass phrases,” and if any organization has this kind of password, surely intruders’ alerts would be reduced, if not eliminated. A typical example for this password is, “I am three years now,” or “Iamthreeyearsnow,” taking away the spaces.

An ideal password may also contain some special characters, symbols, and figures that could confuse the hackers. Similarly, misspelled words, combined uppercase and lowercase letters, special characters and symbols prevents hackers to gain access to an organization’s records. However, an organization must avoid passwords that can be identified easily by outsiders who have the interest to trace and obtain important documents and information of the organization. These passwords should not follow sequences and repetitive arrangement of characters, symbols, and numbers like “54321,” “888888,” or “efghijkl.” A password containing personal information does not create a safe password either.

It is customary for every organization to have a chain of systems that operates in different ways. The organization therefore, should ensure that every system uses a different password to avoid conciliation of all the system’s information. Whilst, some online browsers automatically store and remember the passwords created. If this continually happens, outsiders may tend to open and acquire information that can be used against the organization. They could however avoid things like this to happen if they discourage keeping passwords online.

            An organization is not the only one that can be hacked by intruders. Personal accounts too are at risk! Hackers are intruders that can take in information in your account and create a major mayhem in your files. These hackers mostly originate from nasty people who love to make detrimental entry to anyone’s account and impair or completely obtains your personal files if not avoided.

On the other hand, the use of multifactor authentication is also an effective way to secure an organization from all the intruders for it goes trough the process of validating the identity of the person first before gaining access. The use of multifactor authentication has served its purpose of securing any system from outsiders. It is considered more reliable and far better in preventing undesirable accesses.

References

Microsoft Corporation (2006, March 23). 5 Tips for Building a Stronger Password. Retrieved September 8, 2008, from http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/bank/strongpasswords5tips.mspx

ha.ckers.org (n.d.). Security policies weakens passwords. Retrieved September 8, 2008, from http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20060605/security-policies-weakens-passwords/