{"id":31137,"date":"2019-12-23T14:22:25","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T14:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=31137"},"modified":"2019-12-23T14:22:29","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T14:22:29","slug":"kaspersky-africa-expert-on-the-importance-of-password-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/12\/23\/kaspersky-africa-expert-on-the-importance-of-password-protection\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaspersky Africa expert on the importance of password protection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Riaan Badenhorst, General Manager of Kaspersky in Africa, on what is the best practice approach that businesses should take to password security<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cybercriminals&#8217; tactics have grown in sophistication and at an alarming rate over the last few years. Threats are becoming more targeted and specific with advanced threat actors being used to carry out damaging attacks. Our research shows that threats will only become more targeted and dangerous in 2020. No one business is immune to this reality and threat &#8211; especially as businesses &#8211; and their employees continue to operate and conduct daily work operations in the digital landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the evolution of technology and all things digital\nhas reshaped and revolutionised the way people work and conduct business today,\nthe digital world beings with it risks that businesses need to be aware of and\nprepared for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One such risk is that of a lack of sufficient password\nprotection. Various types of technologies, devices and accounts are used to\ncarry out work tasks and to communicate on a daily basis. Many of these aspects\nbecome people\u2019s lifeline both in a personal and professional capacity \u2013 just\nthink about email as an example. In fact, it is rare to find someone who\ndoesn\u2019t feel somewhat lost or unproductive if they don\u2019t have access to their\nlaptop, smartphone device or emails throughout the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As these devices and accounts become more entrenched\ninto daily life, so they continue to exchange and store an increasing amount of\ndata \u2013 and often very value data, including business critical and sensitive\ninformation. If these devices and\/or accounts are not adequately protected and\ndo not have strong passwords, they are at an increased risk of cybercriminal\nattacks, which if happens, could lead to devasting consequences for a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Password protection and password-based strategies must\nbe a top priority for businesses driving forward a digital approach and with\nthis must form a core part of any strong cybersecurity policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The following practical steps to effective password\nprotection within a business can be considered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Consider the role of human error \u2013 research shows that\n80% of all cyber-incidents are caused by human error. Businesses need to\nonboard staff training around the realities of cyberthreats, how data can be at\nrisk and how staff can go about protecting the organisation\u2019s business data as\nwell as how to go about setting strong passwords as required for various\ndevices and accounts<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Security awareness training \u2013 in considering the above, minimising, or hopefully eliminating, the potential human error aspect of cybersecurity within an organisation requires the organisation to look at building a human firewall. This is achieved through the right security awareness and training solutions that go beyond basic training, to offer training that is easily digestible, practical, and importantly, memorable, to ensure that staff don\u2019t become the means by which an attacker gains a foothold in the organisation<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Security solutions investment &#8211; a solid data protection strategy in the digital world is made up of a strong suite of security solutions aimed at protecting businesses data across the full business and its employee base<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When considering how much data or information mobile\ndevices and various digital based accounts hold, it becomes evident that\npassword protection is a critical consideration business must look into and\neducate staff around. Cybercriminals will look for any loophole they can find\nto infiltrate a business and cause serious damage \u2013 don\u2019t make it easy for them\nwith a lack of attention to password security. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Riaan Badenhorst, General Manager of Kaspersky in Africa, on what is the best practice approach that businesses should take to password security. Cybercriminals&#8217; tactics have grown in sophistication and at an alarming rate over the last few years. Threats are becoming more targeted and specific with advanced threat actors being used to carry out damaging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":31139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[843,5,399],"tags":[449,388,12139,2682,1988],"class_list":["post-31137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-choice","category-enterprise-security","category-more-news","tag-cybercriminals","tag-cybersecurity","tag-kaspersky-africa","tag-password-protection","tag-riaan-badenhorst"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31140,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31137\/revisions\/31140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}