ActiSoft Technology - Blog #MSSP

7 Reasons Why You Need a Password Manager

Sun, 02 Jun 2024 12:42:22 +0000

Researchers attribute 80% of all breaches to weak passwords. These seemingly innocuous combinations—birthdays, pet names, or “12345”—become gateways for cybercriminals. They exploit lists of commonly used passwords and employ simple hacking tools to guess their way into accounts. Imagine someone getting rich by cracking passwords and draining bank accounts.

Monitoring your employees' password habits can be a daunting task without a password management solution in place. A business password manager grants organisations full control and oversight of their employees' password behaviours. The process of onboarding and offboarding employees is also streamlined. Continue reading to discover the functions of a password manager and how it can advantage your organisation.

What Is a Business Password Manager?

A business password manager is a tool that enables you and your employees to track, store, share, protect, and manage all passwords. Passwords are kept in a secure, cloud-based digital vault, accessible only with a master password. This vault can also store more than passwords, including documents, identity cards, and SSH keys, thus streamlining the security of your employees' files and passwords. Additionally, a password manager facilitates the creation of strong, unique passwords for each account, securely storing them.

Password managers play a vital role in maintaining the security of your organisation and simplifying the management of your employees' passwords. They also negate the need for employees to submit help desk tickets for password resets.

Benefits of Having a Password Manager For Your Organisation

Unsure of how a password manager can benefit your organisation? Consider these six advantages of deploying a business password management solution.

1. Enforce Organisation Password Policies Efficiently

Centralising password management within a single platform enables organisations to standardise and implement password security policies throughout the organisation. This includes setting a minimum password length and mandating the use of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for every compatible site.

Employing a password manager permits IT administrators to verify compliance with organisational password policies among all employees.

2. Visibility Into Password Practices

Without centralised password management, IT administrators lack insight into employees' password habits. This issue of visibility is increasingly critical with the rise of remote work. It will prevent your employees reusing the same password across various sites and applications. Password managers offer a centralised console that grants administrators full visibility into employees' password practices, regardless of whether they are working in the office, remotely, or using a hybrid approach. Don’t worry the IT administrators cannot see the passwords in a user’s vault.

3. Securely Share Passwords

In businesses, password sharing is essential and crucial for task completion, yet it's imperative that employees have a secure method to share these passwords with their team. A password manager serves this purpose effectively. It enables organisations to establish shared folders for various groups such as individual departments or project teams. Moreover, users can securely share credentials with designated individuals, with the added convenience of automatic credential transfer to the recipient's vault.

Furthermore, our offering of Keeper's password manager provides the option to dictate whether the recipient of shared credentials or folders has the permission to edit or merely view the shared items.

4. Implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Employees should be granted only the system access necessary for their job functions, nothing more, this is the Principle of Least Privilege. This not only aids in preventing insider attacks but also reduces organisational risk if an employee's account is compromised. Adopting a standardised password management solution allows organisations to enforce Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and keep track of account activities for any unusual behaviour that might suggest misuse or a security breach.

5. Dark Web Monitoring

Cybercriminals often target Software as a Service (SaaS) developers and other vendors, aiming to steal credentials from their clients' employees. It may take months for an organisation to detect a breach, and usually, the victims of these third-party breaches are the last to realise they've been compromised. Meanwhile, cybercriminals might have already sold the stolen login credentials on the dark web.

BreachWatch, a widely-used extension for Keeper's password manager included in our Enterprise offering, monitors dark web forums and alerts organisations in real-time if any employee passwords or credentials appear online. It integrates smoothly with the Keeper password management platform, allowing IT administrators to promptly enforce password resets.

6. Simplified employee onboarding and offboarding

The use of a uniform password manager streamlines the onboarding process for new hires, facilitating a smooth transition even when the team is partially or fully remote. IT administrators can efficiently prepare new employees for work within minutes by either manually registering each one via the admin console or enrolling multiple users simultaneously using Keeper's supported methods. New employees are welcomed with a personalised email invitation containing a link to set up their Keeper Vault.

Former employees retaining active passwords pose a significant cyber risk, and securing passwords during the offboarding process is vital to an organisation's cybersecurity infrastructure. Upon an employee's departure, their system access must be revoked without delay. Password managers not only enable IT administrators to promptly withdraw access from ex-employees but also offer the option to conceal passwords for current employees within the platform. This measure prevents the copying of passwords through screenshots or written notes and facilitates the secure handover of accounts to successors.

7. Helpdesk Tickets

It is estimated that 40% of help desk calls/tickets pertain to password resets, each costing the business approximately £60. Envision a scenario where a multitude of employees are synchronised on a 90-day password renewal cycle; the impact on productivity could be substantial.

IT support teams can be targeted with social engineering attacks aimed at password resets, they typically rely on static data to confirm an employee's identity, a password manager such as Keeper mitigates that risk.

Consider the potential accomplishments of your support team with a decrease in password reset calls/tickets!

Choosing Keeper as Your Organisation’s Password Manager

Keeper's Enterprise password management solution offers all the essential features required in a password manager, plus many additional benefits. The Keeper password manager operates on a zero trust and zero knowledge basis, ensuring that only the end user can access the plain-text data in their Keeper vault—Keeper's employees included.

With Keeper for Business, every employee receives Keeper across an unlimited number of devices, ensuring comprehensive protection throughout the company. Moreover, it includes a complimentary family plan for every employee.

Contact our friendly Cyber Security specialists at Actisoft today to find out how Keeper Password Manager can help you improve your security posture and protect your users and organisation.

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The Power of Password Managers: Safeguarding Your Digital World

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 13:47:33 +0000

In today's digital age, where our lives are increasingly intertwined with the online world, ensuring the security of our personal information has become paramount. A crucial aspect of protecting our digital assets is creating and managing strong, unique passwords for every online account. Yet, remembering multiple complex passwords can be a daunting task. This is where password managers come to the rescue, offering convenience, peace of mind, and fortified protection against a range of cyber threats. In this blog, we explore the benefits of using a password manager and the threats they effectively shield us from.

What are the Benefits to Using a Password Manager

Enhanced Security

Password managers generate strong, randomised passwords for each of your online accounts, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorised access. Unlike using predictable passwords or reusing the same one across multiple sites, which can make all your accounts vulnerable if one is breached, a password manager keeps each password unique and encrypted.

Convenience and Time-Saving

With a password manager, you no longer need to memorise or write down passwords on sticky notes. Instead, you only need to remember one master password to access the password manager itself. This saves valuable time and reduces the frustration of struggling to remember numerous passwords.

Password Strength Analysis

A password manager often includes features that analyse the strength of your existing passwords and identify any weak or duplicate ones. It helps you rectify these issues and reinforces your overall security posture. Better ones alert you to any passwords that may have been breached.

Auto-Fill Functionality

Password managers can auto-fill login credentials for you, streamlining the login process and reducing the chance of typing errors that might lead to accidental exposure of sensitive information.

Threats Password Managers Protect Against

Phishing Attacks

Phishing remains one of the most common cyber threats, where attackers use fake websites to steal login information. Password managers help combat this by automatically recognising the correct URLs and refusing to auto-fill credentials on malicious sites.

Credential Stuffing

In a credential stuffing attack, hackers use combinations of usernames and passwords from previous data breaches to gain unauthorised access to multiple accounts. Password managers thwart this threat by ensuring each account has a unique, strong password.

Keylogging

Keyloggers are malicious software that record keystrokes, allowing hackers to capture sensitive information like passwords. Password managers mitigate this risk by auto-filling passwords, bypassing the need for manual typing.

Shoulder Surfing

In crowded places, attackers might watch over your shoulder to steal passwords as you type them. Password managers minimise this risk by eliminating the need to manually enter passwords.

Insider Threats

Password managers protect against internal threats by limiting access to sensitive information. Organisations can restrict access to the password manager's master password, ensuring only authorised personnel can retrieve the stored credentials.

The adoption of a password manager is a critical step towards fortifying your digital security and safeguarding your sensitive information. By generating strong, unique passwords, protecting against various cyber threats, and offering convenient access to your online accounts, password managers prove to be indispensable tools in the fight against cybercrime. Embrace the power of password managers and take control of your digital world with confidence and peace of mind. Remember, your passwords are the gatekeepers to your online world, and with a password manager, you hold the keys to their fortified protection.

81% of breaches are due to a failure to secure passwords, credentials and secrets, you can remove that risk by adding a password manager to your security stack. It's an excellent addition to your multi-layered security.

At Actisoft Technology we look to make you secure so that you can Work From Anywhere (WFA) not just in the office or at home, take your protection with you wherever you go.

Talk with us about how Keeper password manager can help you mitigate the risk to your organisation from weak passwords.

Managed Security Services for SME's

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 08:22:06 +0000

Good Reasons to use an MSSP for your Security

Firstly, let’s start with a brief description of what an MSSP is and what they do.

An MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider) provides outsourced monitoring and management of security devices, systems and software. Common services include managed firewall, intrusion detection, virtual private network, vulnerability scanning and anti-viral services. This is designed to reduce the number of dedicated operational security personnel a business needs to employ to reduce the cyber risk to the organisation. It won’t replace your current IT Department it will become an extension of it, enhancing the service they provide internally and allowing them to focus on work that will drive the business forward.

Entering into a Partnership with an MSSP you will have SLA’s and they will be proactive in monitoring your business and dependent upon the Service Level you have with the provider they will provide alerts and reports for your organisation.

The benefits are very similar to contracting out your IT Desktop & Server support to an MSP (Managed Service Provider).

One of the biggest benefits of using a Managed Security Services Provider is they can discover and fix security problems before they can negatively impact your business.

We provide Managed Security Bundles, Security Hardware and individual Security Products as well as Training

The Problem

The Threat from Cybercriminals is ever-changing, they are, just like you and I, looking for a Return on Investment. They operate as a business and therefore put a lot of effort in to their attempts to compromise your security. An MSSP will proactively monitor your security and improve it, that’s where they get their Return on Investment!

A 2018 Government survey estimated that the average cost of a small business’s worst cyber attack is between £65,000 and £115,000. 74% of small business’s haven’t put any money aside to deal with an attack. That is hardly surprising!

Recovering from a Cyberattack involves many measures, identifying and fixing the problem, replacing damaged or lost data, software and hardware, hiring specialist IT security/forensic consultants, a PR firm to manage a damaged reputation, a solicitor to deal with clients who’ve had their own business compromised as a result of your cyber incident. There are also other costs such as downtime and loss of revenue during to the downtime and potentially after with a loss of clients, some businesses even close.

Don’t let this happen to you, Act Now and Review your Security Posture!

Why do SME’s Need an MSSP

SME’s are an ideal target for Cybercriminals and no business is too small to be a target.

From recent reports almost half (48%) have had a cyberattack or data breach in their lifetime, with over one in seven saying this happened more than once. Of the businesses that had been targeted, 70 per cent were used as an entry point into a larger enterprise system they supply to. Nearly half (48%) of the cases negatively impacted relationships, with almost a quarter (22%) admitting they are no longer a supplier as a result. If you are ever looking to exit your business then having had a breach may impact the sales value of your business.

Additional Statistics

· 44% of decision makers are spending a day each week dealing with cybersecurity issues

· UK SME's see clear business benefits to cybersecurity investment. Over half (52%) believe investing in cybersecurity drives innovation, and 58 per cent believe it increases productivity. Nearly one third (28%) say cybersecurity could increase their revenue and attract new customers.

Using an MSSP will allow you to get that day a week back to work on the business!

In another recent report published by the government’s Cyber Streetwise campaign and KPMG, SME victims disclosed that:

· 89% felt that attacks impacted upon their Brand Reputation

· 30% reported a loss of clients

· 25% received negative reviews on social media

· 26% were unable to grow in line with previous forecasts

· 93% of businesses suffered operational limitations

Prevention is always better than cure!

Cybersecurity Tips for SME's

Always educate. Security awareness training can’t be a tick-box activity for SMBs. It needs to be continual, so cybersecurity stays top-of-mind and user error is minimised.

Take a layered approach. SME's need to leverage both next-generation endpoint protection and network protection to ensure they are covering the gaps that cybercriminals and hackers deploy to compromise businesses.

Know the signs. Phishing is a favourite technique amongst attackers. Make sure employees are confident in identifying the different types of attack. Security awareness training that incorporates phishing simulations ensures that people, processes, and technology are all harnessed effectively together to stop cybercriminals.

Assess your risk profile. Every business has different risk factors. If you don’t have the expertise, get an independent security audit or your MSSP to help assess your security posture. Work to develop a plan for adequate ongoing risk mitigation. Look at your GDPR exposure and follow guidelines to ensure the appropriate mitigation criteria are met.

Plan for the worst. Create a data breach response plan that identifies specific security experts to call and a communications response plan to notify customers, staff and the public. Have a backup and recovery strategy and test it, regularly!

The Advantages of Using an MSSP

You never would of guessed this one! Cyber/Data Security is their core business and they keep up to date with emerging threats and technologies. With businesses becoming more mobile and more devices than ever in use it can be a minefield for SME’s to try and stay ahead of the curve.

MSSP’s are an insurance policy constantly working in the background protecting your business and allowing you to achieve the business goals & objectives without a cyber incident impeding you.

Your costs are fixed and you know in advance what they are going to be. Ever bought goods for your Wedding? The word ‘Wedding’ adds quite a premium to the costs of everything, the same goes with the statement ‘I have been breached/victim of a cyber attack and our systems are down’ the premium can be very costly.

There are many other benefits and if you would like to find out the ones relative to your business then please contact us.

#mssp #cybersecurity #brandprotection

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