Are you Cyber Aware? The best password practice for work and home
We are very happy to support the Government’s Cyber Aware campaign which aims to share the simplest ways in which individuals and small businesses can change behaviours to protect data.
By following simple advice, even if with limited technical skills, you will be in a strong position to protect yourself against cyber criminals.
Part of our work with customers is to keep their business data and networks as secure as possible and there is a lot that technology and our expertise can protect. But we do also recognise that human behaviour can be the weakest point in the system. By sharing simple advice and making everyone more cyber aware we hope these good practices can become as normal as physical security measures such as locking a door.
Key advice from the Cyber Aware campaign:
1. Strong passwords
Many of us are leaving our data vulnerable by using common or simple to guess passwords.
We all understand that it can be difficult to remember many different passwords, especially if we’ve tried to make them complicated. The best password practice, recommended by the NCSC, is that you create a strong password, which is not impossible to remember, by using three random words together to form your password.
For example: beachglasskitten three random words that form a long password that you will be able to picture and remember.
Find our more detailed post on creating secure passwords here
2. Software updates
Protect your device by always running the latest software, download the latest updates as soon as they appear n your phone, tablet and pc. It is likely the update will contain the most up to date security to beat the latest threats. On many devices you can have these set up to run automatically so you don’t even have to worry about it, if not they only take a few minutes which is worth it to protect your data.
There are many tools and techniques available to protect data and we can offer advice on these if required. But if everyone applies these two practices and becomes more ‘Cyber Aware’ it is a good place to start.
More information about the cyber aware campaign can be found here: https://www.cyberaware.gov.uk/
Updated in 2023: Read our top 5 tips for increasing your business’ password security
