KnowBe4 urges citizens to adopt robust password hygiene measures as cyber threats increase
KnowBe4, the world's largest security awareness training and mock phishing platform, is celebrating World Password Day tomorrow and encouraging users to improve their password hygiene to ensure cyber safety.
With digital security more important than ever, World Password Day is an annual call to action for individuals and organizations to strengthen their password practices. Founded in 2005 by security researcher Mark Burnett, this day is a reminder to regularly update your passwords and adopt best practices to protect your digital life. With data breaches and cyberattacks on the rise, it's time to ditch weak and insecure passwords and strengthen your cybersecurity defenses.
Roger A. Grimes, data-driven defense evangelist at KnowBe4, emphasizes the importance of password security based on more than 30 years of password attack research. “The unpleasant truth is that password strategies have not kept up with the skills of modern hackers. Too many people still use passwords that can be cracked in minutes, even seconds. Approach passwords with a strategic defense mindset, not just complexity,” Grimes said.
Most cyber-attacks are the result of a number of factors, with the combination of weak passwords and social engineering ranking among the highest. However, people continue to use the same weak and easily broken passwords at home and at work, share their passwords with others, and store them in easily accessible locations. This means, for example, that if one of a user's social media accounts is compromised, that user's work email is also likely to be vulnerable to hackers.
Grimes identified that password attacks generally fall into four main categories:
- password guessing
- password theft
- password hash cracking
- password bypass
To respond to ongoing cyber threats, it is recommended not only to change passwords frequently, but also to construct strong and unpredictable passwords that can evade guessing attacks. According to Egress Software Technologies, 79% of credential thefts involve phishing, and one of the best defenses is to block phishing attempts before they reach users and implement appropriate mitigation. The goal is to provide security awareness training for countermeasures and reporting if you encounter phishing.
Advanced security measures such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) combined with biometrics also add an additional layer of protection. Combining something you have (your device) with something you are yourself (biometric data) and combining these with complex passwords makes it much harder to phish, guess, and predict, making it even more secure .
password Best practice advice
- Instead of using a password, create a passphrase. This is a sentence or combination of words that is easy to remember. For example, CoffeeB4WorkIsTheBest! or MyFavouriteMacMealIs#51. Including numbers and special characters in your passphrase makes it even more difficult to crack.
- Add multi-factor authentication and biometrics to your login process.
- Avoid using the same password for multiple websites or accounts, and don't use the same password at home and at work.
- Use passwords This ensures you have long, complex, and unique passwords for every place you need to log in. Password managers also remove the human element of creating passwords, ensuring they can't be shared with anyone. Remember, the more people who know your password, the more vulnerable you and your organization are to cyberattacks.
For more insight and details on password best practices, read Grimes' blog post here.
Promote your webinar with ITWIRE
It's all about webinars.
Marketing budgets are now focused on webinars combined with lead generation.
If you want to promote your webinar, we recommend running your campaign at least 3-4 weeks before the event.
The iTWire campaign includes extensive advertising on the news site itwire.com and prominent newsletter promotions https://itwire.com/itwire-update.html and promotional news and editorials. In addition, video interviews of featured speakers on iTWire TV https://www.youtube.com/c/iTWireTV/videos will be used in promotional posts on the iTWire homepage.
iTWire is currently emerging from lockdown. iTWire focuses on supporting webinars and campaigns with partial payments and extensions, webinar business booster packs, and other support programs. In addition to creating advertisements and written content, we can also coordinate video interviews.
We look forward to discussing your campaign goals. Click the button below.
Click here for details!
