3 Reasons to Use a Password Manager

With all of the accounts that people have these days, it almost--almost--makes sense that people tend to use passwords that are too short, overly simple, and repeat across multiple accounts. Unfortunately, the only thing this does is to make accounts less secure. As a result, more and more authentication requirements are being put into place to keep security a priority.

This can create some difficulties. How often have you found yourself locked out of one of your accounts because you accidentally put in the password for another one? Or one that you had used for that account in the past?

These kinds of issues can be insanely irritating to deal with, which is why password management systems have become so popular among businesses. Here, we’ll review the three primary reasons that you should consider password management.

Less to Remember

A 2007 study states that, on average, a computer user typically had about eight password-protected online accounts. Considering all of the services and platforms that have been developed and become popular in the last decade, it isn’t hard to imagine that this “eight” has almost assuredly swelled considerably.

This means that the pressure that comes from remembering a sufficiently complicated password for each account has similarly swelled. While the human memory can be trained to astounding limits, that requires some pretty intense training… are you suggesting that you’re willing to invest in this training for each one of your employees?

Unfortunately, most businesses can’t realistically make this commitment. That’s okay, because a password manager accomplishes effectively the same thing, while giving you control over your own resources and assets. All a user needs to remember is a single master password, and they will be able to access all of the passwords they need to do their job.

Security is Easier to Maintain

So far we’ve reviewed that it is important to use a variety of passwords that corresponds to the variety of accounts you have, but we haven’t really touched on why. Doing so is pretty simple… just put it in the scope of the private user. Would you rather have a credit card stolen, or have all of your credit cards, bank accounts, medical records, property holdings, investments, and social media accounts stolen?

While neither option is ideal, the latter one is clearly worse, and is exactly the kind of scenario that comes from recycling passwords.

A password manager protects you from the temptation of recycling passwords, as well as the temptation to make them easy to guess. As a result, your overall password strategy remains secure, the potential for escalation being significantly reduced.

Improved Management

There will almost assuredly be varying needs in your business, as far as access to documents and resources is concerned. However, if there is a particular account that needs to remain secure, while still being accessible to your staff, a password management system can be extremely helpful.

Via the password manager, you can manage your users’ credentials. Controlled by the responsibilities of each user as per their role, you can prevent your users from even seeing the credentials while they are putting them in, boosting your security even farther.

Want help improving your security, either through a password management system or some other means? Reach out to Walsh IT Group at (832) 295-1445 to start a conversation.