Now that we are in the digital age, scams and hacks have become more rampant than ever. Because of the many important information, we store online, hackers do whatever they can to break into our accounts. As a provider of managed IT services in Riverside, California, we will share below strategies in preventing this kind of attack.
One common attack you may be familiar with is trying different passwords to one username. Many cybersecurity services are familiar with this. Thus, you can get locked out of a website for getting the incorrect password multiple times.
That does not stop hackers, however. This brings us to password spraying. Contrary to the type of attack explained above, this uses different usernames while trying one common password. As several email addresses can be shown publicly, it is fairly easy for hackers to try on frequently used passwords such as “123456” or “password”.
What You Can Do
- Never use a common password.
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that longer passwords are better, too.
- Multifactor authentication can greatly help as it requires confirmation via text to log in.
- However, SMS via text is not the best option
- Instead, use multifactor authentication via authenticator applications in Android and iOS devices such as Microsoft or Google Authenticator. They are much more secured than SMS text
- Some of these multifactor authentication applications, also provide push notification to approve or deny access making it easier. However, using push notification has its own drawback because you may accidently Approve something even though you meant to deny it. Instead, these applications provide randomly generated code that change every few seconds or minutes and those will minimize accidently approvals.
- You can enable IT administrators to let users change passwords when logging in to new applications.
- Segment network services so that users can access only what is needed.
For many businesses, it is crucial to avoid data breaches or attacks at all costs. Therefore, seeking help from IT services management is advisable.
At Advise IT Solutions, we can help you with your IT needs. Learn more about our IT solutions in Moreno Valley, California today.