Aha Moment Monday
My IT guy, Sean at CIM, made a great observation about passwords in his recent article of “Tech Notes”. He said, “It may sound so 2002, but plenty of people still use birthdays, pet names or even “password” as their passcodes, or they meet the bare-minimum standards for required passcode complexity.”
Of course Sean was referring to protecting yourself against cyber attacks. Nowadays attackers are extremely sophisticated delivering authentic-looking email messages. Those phishing attacks can be devastating to your company.
Here’s the thing: we like “simple”.
It’s like when we jump on a website to purchase something or call a service provider to make changes to our account or need to navigate the streets with GPS. The simpler the solution – the easier it is for us to get from point A to point B – the happier we are.
It’s far easier to remember our birthday, our pet’s name, or “password” as opposed to 8y0UvgE4L and with the number of password-protected sites we visit daily, “simple” seems like the way to go.
Not so.
Sean says that “employees” are the “…largest risks to cybercrime.”
Your wonderful employees that you’ve taught to keep your processes simple so that customers and teammates alike can easily navigate their way to hitting sales goals and making a difference in the lives of their customers, are now expected to be artists of randomness? How’s that fair?
Aha – Just like a great romance, know when to be mysterious and when to K.I.S.S.
An over-simplified passcode is like leaving the key under the mat for unwanted intruders.
Conversely, creating complex systems, requiring multiple voicemail prompts, building multi-layer sales funnels or supplying spread sheets that need a decoder is a great way to drive customers away.
Protect diligently.
Love simply.
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