On a global scale, the average cost of a data breach rose from an estimated $3.86 million in 2020 to $4.24 million in 2021.
In this year alone 81% of hacking-related breaches used stolen passwords and/or weak passwords.
Research shows the most common insecure practices of Cloud Solutions users are;
• Sharing passwords with colleagues, family members, and friends
• Jotting down passwords on sticky notes, papers, or planners
• Changing passwords only when prompted or using the same passwords for multiple sites.
Making sure that your cloud user credentials are strong and secure, will be the first step against cyber attacks. Below are tips on how to create strong and memorable passwords to safeguard your hosted cloud solution.
1. Make it 8-12 Characters.
• The longer your Cloud solutions password, the more secure it is. Research has found that 45 per cent of us use passwords of eight characters or less, which are not as secure as longer passwords.
• A cloud solutions password shouldn’t be shared with any other account.
• A cloud solutions password shouldn’t include any of the user’s personal information like their address or phone number. It’s also best not to include any information that can be accessed on social media such as family members or pets' names.
2. Use special characters.
We recommend that all Cloud users’ passwords have at least 10 characters, 1 capital letter, 1 number and 1 special character.
Example: Instead of using the word "Special" in your password, you could add special characters, so it looks more like this "$pec1aL".
3. Try Phrases.
Using phrases in your Hosted desktop password makes fun and easy to remember them.
Example: "A piece of cake" is an easy to remember phrase. Adding special characters to this phrase will make it that much more secure- "Ap1eC£0fc@kE.".
4.Use a Hint.
Choose a password hint that will make remembering your Cloud password, a stress-free process.
Example: you might use " I like my tea with", as hint is you use "A piece of cake" as your cloud solutions password.
5. Use Cloudsis Password Manager
We recommend all our Cloud customers enrol for Cloudsis Password Manager, which enables the hosted desktop user to reset their password via a dedicated and secure portal.
6. Additional Steps
• Refresh your hosted cloud solution password every few months, ensuring that the passwords for any hosted applications within the hosted cloud solution are also updated.
• Use multi-factor authentication, providing a second step verification with a single-use MFA token on a device previously authorised by you. Our cloud solutions enforce the use of multi-factor authentication, which makes it much more difficult for an unauthorised person to access your cloud session.