5 Benefits Of Adopting More Secure Password Practices

We’ve got something controversial to say: passwords are terrible.
Everyone who uses the internet has dozens if not hundreds of username and password combinations to worry about in their personal lives. On top of these, anyone working in a modern business will have additional credentials to manage at work.
People can’t remember 100 passwords, of course, so they do what’s natural. They use simple, easy-to-remember passwords, and they tend to reuse them across multiple sites. They also tend to write their passwords down somewhere that may or may not be very secure. The whole system just doesn’t work well, and that’s why we say that passwords are terrible.
It’s a system ripe for abuse, and there’s plenty of abuse happening. One report says that a staggering 15 billion stolen passwords are floating out there on the dark web. What are the chances that passwords critical to your business functions are among those?
The easiest and best solution to the password problem is using a password manager. This kind of utility can store and secure all your passwords, keeping them safe behind one all-important (and, ideally, very secure) single password. One of the oldest and best-known password managers is 1Password, and it’s the one we will evaluate today. It has the features and functionality businesses need and can add a great deal of security to your company.

1Password Explained

At its core, 1Password is a password manager. It remembers all your passwords, so you don’t have to. You simply have to memorize one Master Password, one that’s sufficiently complex that it won’t be guessed or cracked.
With integration to every major OS (including mobile) via apps and browser extensions, 1Password provides the necessary credentials wherever you need them, on whatever device you’re using.
There’s more to 1Password than just remembering your passwords, of course. The utility also has an auto password generator, allowing you to swap your short, insecure “123456” passwords for long, unguessable ones. It will also alert you about ways you can increase your password hygiene and security. For example, if you’re using a password that’s been found in a breach, Watchtower will alert you.
In the years since its inception, 1Password has earned a level of deep trust from its business customers. Companies as large as IBM, Slack and Dropbox rely on 1Password as a part of their security efforts.

Benefits of Using 1Password in Your Business

Using a business-grade password manager is a great idea for just about any business. Below are five of the most significant benefits you’ll gain by implementing 1Password.

Increase Password Security

One of the weakest points in just about any organization is the passwords its employees are using. If you don’t prevent them from doing so, we guarantee someone in your company is using “password”, “123456”, their own names, or other weak passwords that are incredibly easy to guess.
Most businesses demand some degree of password complexity, like adding numbers, capital letters or special characters. That’s a good step, but it’s not enough. It doesn’t prevent people from writing their passwords down on sticky notes or sharing them with coworkers in insecure methods.
With 1Password, all your passwords are encrypted and stored under a user’s Master Password. You can also require people to create truly complex passwords, ones that 1Password generates (and remembers) for them.

Increase Overall Cybersecurity

By and large, people are your weakest link in cybersecurity, too. Most cybersecurity breaches aren’t accomplished by brute force, and hacking never looks like it does on TV. Breaches happen because people in the breached company get their own accounts compromised. This can happen through poor password security, but it can also occur through targeted attacks like phishing and spear-phishing campaigns.
Now, on its own, 1Password can’t prevent your employees from getting phished. (You’ll need separate cybersecurity awareness training to help with that.) But by making it easier for users to create secure passwords, 1Password makes it easier for your company to promote healthy cybersecurity practices across the board.
This can be a game-changer for smaller companies that can’t afford enterprise cybersecurity solutions. Even without those stronger tools, companies can decrease exposure and risk significantly by implementing 1Password or similar tools.

Businesses Can Control All Business-Related Accounts

Another area where 1Password can help your business is control. With a Teams or Business license for 1Password, administrators gain flexible controls over all corporate accounts and logins. If an employee does get phished, you can quickly identify all accounts that may have been compromised— no more guessing or relying on the employee’s memory regarding where those credentials have been used.

1Password also gives you the ability to control who has access to what, using a feature called vaults. Group similar permissions together into vaults, then assign those vaults to new or existing employees. This functionality works best when you have single-sign-on accounts that multiple people need access to.

Another potential security concern is what happens when someone leaves the company. If someone walked off the job with keys to every sensitive area, you’d change the locks. But what are you doing to protect shared logins, especially to third-party tools? Many businesses don’t consider that certain sensitive credentials are just as dangerous — if not more so — in the hands of a disgruntled employee. That now-former employee could walk out holding onto a login or two — or might even have the credentials memorized.

With 1Password, it’s easier than ever to remove accounts when an employee moves on. Additionally, if you’re using the app to generate complex passwords, those passwords are exceptionally difficult to memorize. And since your employees aren’t regularly using the passwords anyway, you’re much more protected than before.

Improve Convenience Without Sacrificing Security

There’s always a tension between convenience and security. The most secure solutions are too difficult to be practical, so people start taking shortcuts and compromising that security. With 1Password, you gain added security and improve the user experience at the same time. It’s compatible with just about everything, with apps for Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, & Chrome OS. 1Password offers browser extensions for all the major browsers, as well.

With a solution as easy to use as 1Password, you’ll gain better employee adoption, too. And the more team members who adopt better security practices, the better positioned your business will be.

Leverage Next-Gen Encryption and Security Protocols

At this point, you may be thinking: “This all sounds great, but what if someone steals my master password? Then they have access to everything!” Fortunately, this doesn’t turn out to be the case. 1Password is built using next-gen encryption and security protocols to keep your data and credentials safe.

Even if someone were to gain access to your Master Password, it isn’t enough to compromise your accounts. 1Password also employs a Secret Key, one that’s never actually exchanged and thus can’t be intercepted. This is a second layer of security that you’ll need when logging into a new device, and it serves as a sort of 2-factor authentication on your 1Password account itself.

Additional Information

At this point, we hope you have a good sense of why you would choose 1Password and the benefits it can bring to your business. If you’re new to cybersecurity or if you’re wondering how to evaluate the many cybersecurity solutions, 1Password is a great choice. It produces tangible results that non-experts can see right away.
Over time, you’ll see it reduce problems such as password reuse and poor password selection. And, it immediately provides solutions for secure sharing of credentials and having to remember so many passwords. The last benefit may go unnoticed, but if you consistently use the password generator to update weak passwords, it will reduce the potential for account ownership issues.
At this point, we hope you have a good sense of what 1Password does and the benefits it can bring to your business. If you need help setting up or configuring your 1Password business account, reach out today. Southeastern Technical is here to help!

Shane Lewis

Shane Lewis is founder/owner of Southeastern Technical. He is passionate about providing excellent IT service to small and medium organizations, and helping businesses develop and grow.

About Southeastern Technical

We help leaders discover how they can have stable, reliable information technology (IT), so their organizations can experience fewer IT problems and security threats.

Categories

Recent posts

How Do Managed IT Services Deliver Value To Your Organization?

November 5, 2024

You know your business needs strong cybersecurity, efficient systems, competitive technology, and expert IT guidance. But how do managed IT services actually deliver these essentials? Discover why our services are designed the way they are—and how each one makes a measurable impact on your business’s success.

Read More »

solutions for real-world problems

We’ll send technology tips to help you resolve existing problems, information about underlying problems in your IT environment and how to solve them, and how to reduce digital security risk for your business.

Stay Connected

Facebook Twitter Linkedin