While experts are trying hard to kill passwords every year with biometrics and other advanced authentication mechanisms, passwords still remain one of the most commonly used methods of authentication across the globe. World Password Day is an annual event celebrated on the first Thursday of every May (this year, it falls on May 3) to raise awareness about the importance of password management best practices to improve online security.
Why do we need World Password Day?
- 123456
- password
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 12345
- 123456789
- letmein
- 1234567
- football
- iloveyou
The list above groups 10 of the most commonly used passwords in 2017. Government agencies, security analysts, and media influencers are constantly educating people about the importance of using strong passwords against the backdrop of increasing cyber threats. But nevertheless, people are not giving up their poor password habits.
But why do people use weak passwords?
- It’s hard to remember and use strong passwords for each account.
- Most are unaware of the security threats caused by weak passwords.
Take the password litmus test.
With an advanced set of tools, Zoho Vault helps individuals, teams, and large enterprises quickly adopt password management best practices and keep hackers at bay. To keep the doors of your online accounts always closed to hackers, we have developed a feature called the Password Assessment Report. This assessment is a litmus test for all your passwords. It runs a quick scan on all the passwords you have stored in Zoho Vault and analyzes them against a set of strong password criteria, including complexity, whether the password is part of the username, recycled, reused, is expired, or is a word that comes from the dictionary.
Once the scan is completed, you will be able to view the full report, which shows the number of weak passwords and gives the overall password strength of all your accounts (in a percentage).
Change weak passwords in a single click.
Weak passwords listed in the report can be easily changed with strong ones using the Change Password button. This option allows you to improve the average password strength of your accounts, and also reduces the number of weak passwords. You can also update the weak passwords manually one by one, if you prefer to go more slowly.
How does this test work in a team environment?
Whenever IT administrators want to find out the number of weak passwords and the average password strength of the entire organization, they can request all users to run the Password Assessment Report. Once the users have completed their assessment, admins can see the cumulative assessment results in the Password Security Analysis Report.
Passwords with a low score on the assessment are labeled “weak.” Admins can alert users to change the weak passwords and improve their overall password strength. You can either view the list of all weak passwords or select a particular user from the dropdown menu and view the assessment data pertaining to that user. This way admins can constantly improve the overall security of the company.
We hope our Password Assessment Report can help you eliminate weak passwords, strengthen the security of your online accounts, and protect your data from cybercriminals. If you are not using Zoho Vault, sign up, import your current passwords, and find out your assessment score. Please let us know how Zoho Vault’s password assessment is working for you in the comments section below.
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