Washington Works Blog

Whether you are a business owner or an office professional managing daily operations, you likely interact with dozens of different online accounts just to complete your workweek. Nevertheless, cybersecurity standards demand that every single account features a completely unique, highly complex passphrase. 

What actually happens? Most people end up playing a frustrating game of "password roulette"—trying their standard password, then adding an exclamation point, and finally trying their pet’s birthday. Before you know it, you are locked out of a critical application and clicking "Forgot Password" for the third time in a single week. It wastes valuable time, creates frustration, and leads to dangerous habits like writing down credentials on sticky notes affixed to monitors. Fortunately, achieving robust security doesn't have to be a headache.

Password protection alone is no longer enough to keep your business data safe from modern cyber threats. Hackers use automated tools to guess weak credentials, and data breaches frequently expose corporate passwords online. If an unauthorized individual obtains login credentials for your company email or financial accounts, they can compromise your operations instantly. 

Implementing multiple layers of verification is the most effective way to prevent unauthorized access and protect your assets.

There’s a misconception out there that younger workers, particularly Millennials and Gen Z, are more proficient with their technology compared to other generations. While they might have grown up using it, this experience doesn’t necessarily translate to proficiency. Assuming any one age group is more aware of cybersecurity is perhaps one of the most costly assumptions you can make.

If you are a business owner, you probably manage hundreds of different online accounts. Yet, tech experts like me expect you to have a completely unique, random password for every single one!

It is a lot to handle. It is also a rule that every single person on your team needs to follow to keep your business safe. A password manager, which is software that stores your logins securely, is the easiest way to manage this requirement.

With over $101 million in jewelry stolen, the recent Louvre heist was a costly success for criminals. However, French publications suggest the thieves may have encountered less resistance than an organization of the museum's stature should provide, thanks to a documented history of severe cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

This history offers a crucial lesson for all businesses: Foundational security flaws can undermine even the most complex physical protections. Let's examine the documented oversights and what they imply about the museum's current security posture.

If your business’ technology seems to be a-okay, the thought of updating it may seem unnecessary. This is decidedly not the case. Updates are what keep your business functioning (and therefore, profitable), while every skipped update opens you up to vulnerabilities, bugs, and much more severe consequences when you experience a true threat.

Making and remembering passwords can be a pain, but everyone is in the same boat. By spending a little time on them now you can stop big problems later. Bad passwords are like leaving your door unlocked for online troublemakers. We don't want that!

Think of your password as the key to your online accounts. You want a strong key, right? Here’s how to make your passwords clean, complex, and work best to secure your digital assets.

Quick—how many passwords do you have to remember? Chances are, it’s more than you might expect… especially when you factor in both your personal ones and those you maintain for your business.

After all, it is risky to the point of irresponsibility to repeat your passwords across accounts, especially those you maintain for your business. This kind of repetition can easily lead to financial losses and reputation damage, as it facilitates a data breach.

Business is filled with situations that can easily be turned into problems if they are not met with a proper solution. In some cases, it’s as simple as changing a course of action, but some problems are deep-rooted and need to be addressed aggressively. Technology can often be a business’ saving grace in such instances.

Let’s review some really bad scenarios that could be catastrophic, unless the right IT is in place.

Security is one of those things that every business owner worries about—no matter how big or small your company is. But the good news? It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. In fact, there are three simple steps you can take right now to make your business more secure.

In business today, technology plays a big role. Unfortunately, by using technology, each individual has to make security considerations. This is because there are more cyberattacks today than ever before. To keep business rolling effectively, today’s workers must carefully consider and understand their role in their organization’s cybersecurity initiatives. In today’s blog, we look at four ways they can do just that.

Whether you like it or not, the password is the most important part of your cybersecurity policy. That’s saying something with all the tools and strategies out there designed to keep unauthorized users from accessing your accounts. Maybe they aren't the most comprehensive security solution, but they are by far the most frequently used and there are some things every user should know to help them build successful passwords. This month, we’ll go into four things every computer user should know about building strong and reliable passwords

Twitter is recommending that all 336 million users change their passwords as soon as possible due to the discovery of an internal security flaw. While the issue has been fixed and no data breach seems to have taken place, Twitter is clearly taking this situation seriously.

Passwords are the most used account security apparatus. As such, it’s essential that everyone connected to your organization has your overall cybersecurity in mind and knows exactly how to secure the accounts they use. In today’s blog, we’ll look at some common passwords that don’t accomplish their stated purpose very well and how to change that.

Password management can be challenging for both businesses and individuals, but it doesn't have to be as difficult as it seems. With the increasing threat of cybersecurity attacks, relying on a single password is no longer sufficient. Instead, you need to use complex passwords stored in a password manager, which simplifies the process of remembering them.

Passwords are one of the most important parts of keeping any account secure, and if you were to gain access to these accounts, you’d have access to personal data, subscriptions, money, and even the victim’s identity. Today, we want to show you just how easy it is to steal a password and gain access to an account.

Did you know that tomorrow is World Password Day, 2023? As the result of a campaign to spread awareness of the importance of sufficiently secure passwords, it has become an annual reminder of how critical sufficient passwords are to proper cybersecurity…despite passwords not being sufficient protection on their own. In light of tomorrow’s observance, let’s take some time to review why passwords are important to get right, and what else you need to have in place.

Multi-factor authentication is great when it works, but when it doesn’t, it can leave you in a pretty difficult situation. After all, what happens when all of a sudden, you cannot access your secondary authentication methods? We’re here to help you bypass this particularly challenging and frustrating scenario.

Simple passwords are just not an effective security practice, so if you’re still using credentials like Password, 123456, Guest, or Qwerty, listen up. You need better password hygiene practices before you suffer from a data breach. Here are some ways you can make a better password to protect your business from threats.

Nobody wants to spend their weekend doing paperwork. Nobody wants to spend several evenings in a row sitting over a laptop and slowly digging through every online account they have, resetting every password and carefully documenting everything in a secure password manager. I know this better than anyone, because I forced myself to do it.

Here’s the thing though, EVERYBODY should do it. As soon as possible.