{"id":554,"date":"2021-01-21T14:30:27","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T20:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/?p=554"},"modified":"2023-03-22T15:17:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T20:17:11","slug":"two-fundamental-steps-towards-functional-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/blog\/two-fundamental-steps-towards-functional-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Fundamental Steps Towards Functional Security"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If everybody\u2019s handing out security advice these days, what\u2019s a good strategy for sorting through the various ideas? How can you pull out the essentials?<\/p>\n<h2>Trust<\/h2>\n<p>Yes, it\u2019s a matter of trust. My hope is that you\u2019ve developed a great relationship with your <a class=\"blue\" href=\"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/it-services\/managed-services\/\">managed IT service provider<\/a> and can lean on them to bring out the best ideas, and answer questions that inevitably come up.<\/p>\n<h2>Accepting Reality<\/h2>\n<p>I\u2019m old enough to say \u201cback in the day\u201d, and back in the day we had seven or eight accounts and thought it was a pain in the ass. Little did we know that it\u2019d get worse \u2013 much worse\u2026<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"blue\" href=\"https:\/\/digitalguardian.com\/blog\/uncovering-password-habits-are-users-password-security-habits-improving-infographic\">Dashlane shared that in 2015 the average user had 90 different online accounts<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>In order to manage this overflow of accounts, end users make perfectly understandable, but insecure, choices:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"blog\">\n<li>38%\u00a0 Write passwords down on paper<\/li>\n<li>17%\u00a0 Use the same password for multiple accounts<\/li>\n<li>9%\u00a0 Keep passwords on a file on their computer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And these choices reduce the security of their online presence. And this doesn\u2019t even touch the concept of shared organizational resources!<\/p>\n<h2>Making IT Secure<\/h2>\n<p>And while computers can place filters on password creation to encourage \u201cbetter\u201d passwords, the reason we need to do that is because, given no guidelines, fully a third of all passwords would end up abc123\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Coming up with a password should be more robust than trying to figure out a new way to manipulate your beloved pet\u2019s name and birthday.<\/p>\n<h2>And Another Thing<\/h2>\n<p>If in addition to a username and password, logging into critical applications required the person to &#8220;have&#8221; something, that would clearly stop intruders. The most common tool that we can employ is a cell phone \u2013 we\u2019ll have another level of confident if we require a code from a cell phone app in order to login.<\/p>\n<h2>The Two Fundamental Steps<\/h2>\n<p>And so, every user needs a digital vault for account information. And every environment that allows an additional key at login time needs to be configured to do so.<\/p>\n<p>The best digital vaults will assist in the creation of arbitrary passwords that meet stringent composition rules, store those passwords, supply those passwords when logging into web sites, and allow teams to share specific secure information between themselves. We\u2019ve selected <a class=\"blue\" href=\"https:\/\/lastpass.sjv.io\/WPJzX\">Lastpass<\/a> as our preferred vendor. It doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t choose any of the options out there \u2013 but if you\u2019re going to ask us to assist, you probably want to use the one we\u2019re familiar with.<\/p>\n<p>And while not all environments support Multiple \/ Two Factor Authentication (MFA\/2FA), Office365, Google, and many other useful sites do. There are several different apps to choose from to load on your Android\/Apple phone. Some are free, others come with a modest subscription. For practical purposes, pick an app that is native to your device and works with your most important sites.<\/p>\n<p><em>BTW &#8211; when Lastpass is setup it requires that second factor\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>If you have additional questions, <a class=\"blue\" href=\"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/\">we\u2019d be happy to talk<\/a>. The fun starts when you bring up the unique situations that face your organization.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"footer_main\">\n<div class=\"footer_cmit\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-306 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2022\/09\/CMMIT-Solutions-Logo-300x150.png\" alt=\"CMIT Solutions Logo\" width=\"148\" height=\"74\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2022\/09\/CMMIT-Solutions-Logo-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2022\/09\/CMMIT-Solutions-Logo.png 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 148px) 100vw, 148px\" \/>In the Rochester area, CMIT Solutions provides local, responsive IT support and technology services for small to mid-sized businesses. As your IT partner, we ensure systems are running, your data is secure, and your staff is productive. Backed by a national system, we have over 200 locations across the country with local ownership in Rochester.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"footer_author\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-585 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2022\/02\/Steve-Tylock3-150x150-1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"145\" height=\"145\" \/>Steve Tylock is a systems infrastructure professional with broad information technology experiences in servers, desktops, networks, security, applications, team development, and solution architecture across the domains of business, education, government, and manufacturing. He specializes in analyzing environments leading to strategies and plans for growth and excellence.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If everybody\u2019s handing out security advice these days, what\u2019s a good strategy&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":261,"featured_media":555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-it"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/261"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cmitsolutions.com\/rochester-ny-1109\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}