Passwords: Why Strong Password Standards, Secure Storage, and Consistent Access Controls Can Mean the Difference Between Everyday Protection and ...($21.95Value)

Description

David runs a marketing agency. For four years, his client portal's administrative account used the password "Agency2019!" - set at launch by a developer who had since left, never changed, never reviewed, and apparently either remembered or guessed by someone who should not have had it. Over eight months, that account was accessed forty-three times from an IP address belonging to a direct competitor. Every client's campaigns, competitive research, pricing, and twelve-month strategy had been available through it. Three clients terminated their contracts. Several considered litigation. The password was eleven characters. Changing it annually would have cost thirty seconds. This book contains the fifteen questions that would have caught the problem at any point in those four years. They cover every dimension of password security that matters for a small business: from the policy that governs password creation, to the manager that stores them securely, to the multi-factor authentication that makes a stolen password less dangerous, to the audit that reveals what the current state actually looks like when someone bothers to check. The fifteen questions address whether the password policy is technically enforced or just written down. Whether staff are using unique passwords or reusing the same ones across personal and business accounts. Whether a business password manager is deployed and actually in use. Whether any systems still use default or unchanged credentials. Whether administrator accounts are held to a higher standard than regular ones. Whether multi-factor authentication is enabled on the accounts that matter most. Whether departing staff trigger a shared credential rotation. Whether service accounts nobody reviews have accumulated for years. Whether the business would know if employee passwords appeared in a breach database. And whether anyone could honestly describe what a password audit would find. Each chapter explains why the question matters, what a solid answer looks like, what a weak one reveals, and what to do next. Chapter Sixteen has follow-up questions for each of the fifteen. Chapter Seventeen is a one-page action checklist you can print and bring to the meeting. IT Support 101 Inc. is an independent advisory firm working exclusively with business owners and executive teams on the technology decisions they cannot afford to get wrong. No commissions. No vendor relationships. Just clear, honest advisory work on your side of the table. Learn more about the firm, the advisory services, and the full book catalog at itsupport101.com