Is your shop exposed to on-site data theft?
Last year, a Lancaster University computing professor put together a list of the worst passwords. The list ranged from sad to humorous. To do this, he looked at lists of hacked and stolen passwords, and found the most common ones; these are the passwords that anyone trying to gain access to your data would try immediately. The top five worst passwords:
- 123456
- password
- welcome
- ninja
- abc123
If you’re using one of these, please change it immediately. If not, that still doesn’t mean that you’re in the clear. Do any ex-employees have your shop system passwords? Do you have any computers that don’t require a password at all? If there is no username or password protecting your data, all anyone would need is a flash drive and three minutes of an unattended computer to wreck your business. It might not be a likely scenario for any one business, but things like this happen to small businesses all the time, and it’s extremely difficult to recover from them.
Here are a few tips for passwords, which are especially important if you store customer data electronically. If your service writers or technicians use passwords to access customer data, make sure they know not to share these with anyone! If they have had to share it with someone, like a computer technician that came in and did repairs, always change it immediately after they’re done. And if an employee does leave your company, make sure to get rid of their user accounts. The more passwords that are floating around, the more trouble that can happen.
Some companies recommend that everyone changes their passwords every 3 to 6 months. In many cases, people will use the same password for everything – and if one of these places gets hacked, their password for everything is floating around the internet. Changing passwords regularly prevents this behavior. The problem with all of these password changes is that people just get frustrated of never knowing the most recent password and just write it on a sticky note next to their computer – a security disaster waiting to happen. So pick a policy that keeps your passwords difficult to guess, but not impossible to remember.
Careful, but reasonable, password policies are one of the best ways to protect yourself from data theft or data loss.
Want to grow your shop’s customer base? Give Repair Shop Websites a call at 855-219-7506 or email us at Team_RSW@RepairShopWebsites.com to learn more about how we can help!