Today, May 5, this year is World Password Day. With so many cyberattacks happening recently, the date in question becomes even more important for raising awareness of the importance of using strong passwords and for cybersecurity education. According to a recent Threat Landscape Retrospective by Tenable, the world’s leading cybersecurity company, over 40 billion data was exposed worldwide in 2021. In Latin America alone, the number of leaked files exceeded 1.7 billion.
A survey of Fortune 500 companies by NordPass found over 15 million hacks across 17 different industries, showing that these companies are vulnerable to hacks due to poor password hygiene. According to the survey, the very word “password”, which is easily guessed by cybercriminals, remains the most used password in various sectors such as retail, technology, finance, energy, chemicals, agriculture, advertising, hospitality and HR.
Celebrated every year on the first Thursday of May, World Password Day was established to remind us of the importance of using strong passwords that are more secure to protect our personal and sensitive data. Tenable offers quick and practical advice on this subject:
It is important, in addition to a strong password, that the user has at least 2 forms of authentication on their devices and applications connected to the Internet. For authentication, the number of variables is more important than the level of complexity of those variables. There is no reason for a password to contain more than 4-6 digits.
- Authentication can be based on who you are (biometrics), what you know (pin), what you have (device/token), and where you are authenticating from (geolocation).
- Password managers and even browsers now notify you when passwords are repeated or stolen and offer longer, stronger passwords that they remember instead of you having to remember them.
- The best way to use passwords is not to use them manually! Get a password manager like LastPass or 1Password and use more complex, hard to guess, and randomly generated passwords with tools like this one.
Fun fact: Do you know the history of World Password Day?
Security researcher Mark Burnet, in his book “Perfect Passwords” (published in 2005), encouraged people to set up a “password day” to update important passwords. So Intel Security was inspired by his idea and declared every first Thursday of May as World Password Day in 2013 to draw attention to the need to protect passwords.
About Tenable
Tenable®, Inc. is a Cyber Exposure company. More than 30,000 organizations around the world rely on Tenable to understand and mitigate cyber risk. As the creator of Nessus®, Tenable has expanded its vulnerability expertise to provide the world’s first platform to scan and protect any digital asset on any computing platform. Tenable’s clients include more than 50% of Fortune 500 companies, more than 30% of Global 2000 companies and large government institutions. Learn more at Tenable.
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Source : Married Games
