World Password Day: Increasing Security In Two Steps

May 1 is World Password Day, a day for organizations to remind their employees of the importance of using strong passwords and practicing good password hygiene to protect personal and work accounts. It's a time for organizations to focus their information security training and awareness program on educating employees on how to increase the security of their accounts in two steps—creating long, unique passwords and enabling multifactor authentication.

Step 1: Train employees to use long, unique passwords for all accounts. Teach employees to use long passphrases: at least five words containing at least 15 characters. Passphrases are easier to memorize—and type—than a long string of random characters. Help employees understand that reusing passwords is risky—if criminals figure out an employee's password for one account, they could use it to try to access the employee's other accounts.