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Video Transcription
Hello, thanks for calling the help desk.
How can I assist you?
Yeah. Hi. I can’t log into my computer.
Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, sir.
Are you able to enter your username and password?
Yes, but my password doesn’t work. It just keeps saying incorrect password.
Gotcha. Okay, well, I’d like to reset that for you. Can I have your employee ID and user authorization code, please?
My employee ID that’s 45982. And my authorization code is 12340.
No problem, sir. Give me a few moments while I reset that for you.
Oh, sir, I’m afraid we have a bit of an issue here. It seems your account it’s been compromised.
Compromised? What do you mean compromised?
Sir, would you mind telling me what your previous password was set to?
Oh, sure. It’s ‘hard password’. But you change the ‘a’ to ‘@’ symbols, and the ‘o’ to a ‘0’…
Oh Boy…
Listen everybody, you do know that you need to have a better password then ‘password’ right?
Changing a few characters just to meet complexity requirements… Well, that doesn’t cut it either.
Did you know that there’s software out there that lets a hacker break those easy passwords in a matter of seconds.
For example, that software can break a five character password in under three hours.
And, if you only use lowercase letters, it would take just 11.9 seconds.
A weak password is still the number one way hackers break in.
So how do you create a strong password?
A good strong password should be a bare minimum of 8 characters and have a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols and it should be difficult to guess.
Also, please do not create passwords based on dictionary words.
Even though part password meets the requirements, it’s super easy to guess.
If you have trouble remembering these difficult to guess passwords, then get yourself a password manager, like 1Password LastPass or Dashlane, and start making your life both easier and more secure.
If you’d like to find out if there may be other areas of your business that could be exposed to cyber crime of other sorts, contact our expert Cybersecurity support team by email to info@continuous.net, or call +1 (201) 579-2086.