Avoiding Cybercrime Dangers: Lock Things Up By Using Passwords Properly
[This post is the fifth in a series. The original post can be found here.]
Like the keys that start your car or open the front door of your home or office, computer passwords are the keys that “unlock” your computer, your mobile devices and access to all the data on your network systems. We all have more passwords than we can remember. This tends to make us a bit lazy. We use obvious and easy to remember passwords – even the word “password” itself. Or worse: We don’t use them at all.
Cyber criminals know and exploit bad password habits as they are often one of the weakest links in data security schemes. For this reason, it is critical that all lawyers and staff in a law office use passwords properly. The article regarding the creation of strong passwords, “Keeping your passwords strong and secure,” reviews the steps you can take to properly use and protect the confidentiality of your passwords, and how you can create passwords that are harder to guess or determine.
Dan Pinnington is the Vice President of Claims Prevention at practicePRO. This article first appeared in the December 2013 issue of LawPro magazine. Reprinted with permission. For more cyber safety tips, visit www.lawpro.ca.
