In 2003, a manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) authored a document on password best practices for businesses, federal agencies, and academic institutions. Now retired, the author admits that his document was misguided. Find out why and what great passwords are made of. The problem The issue isn’t necessarily that NIST advised people to create passwords that are easy to crack, but it did steer people into creating lazy passwords, using capitalisation, special characters, and numbers that are easy to predict, like “P@ssW0rd1.” This may seem secure, but in reality, these strings of characters and numbers could easily be compromised by hackers using common algorithms. To make matters worse, NIST also recommended that people change their passwords regularly, but did not define what it actually means to “change” them. Since people thought their passwords were already secure with special characters, most only added one number or symbol. NIST essentially forced everyone, including you and your colleagues, to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember but easy for computers to guess. The solution One cartoonist pointed out just how ridiculous NIST’s best practices were when he revealed that a password like “Tr0ub4dor&3” could be cracked in only three days while a password like “correcthorsebatterystaple” would take about 550 years. Simply put, passwords should be longer and include nonsensical phrases and English words that make it almost impossible for an automated system to make sense of. Even better, you should enforce the following security solutions within your company: Multi-factor Authentication - which only grants access after you have successfully presented several pieces of evidence Single Sign-On - which allows users to securely access multiple accounts with one set of credentials Account Monitoring Tools - which recognize suspicious activity and lock out hackers When it comes to security, ignorance is the biggest threat. If you’d like to learn about what else you can do to fortify security, just give Multi IT a call on 011 435 0450.

“Penny wise, pound foolish.” This British saying has endured through time because its wisdom holds true even today – particularly when it comes to technology. Nothing kills the bottom line like downtime. Often, downtime is easily prevented but, someone along the way decided to “save money” instead. Like the business owner who hired his brother-in-law to manage the IT department of a multimillion dollar company well known for its customer service. It seemed like everything was going well: the IT support bill was low, and computers were running pretty well. Until ransomware hit the company. Not wanting to pay the ransom, they went to restore their backups only to find their systems had not been backed up in over 3 months! At this point, many businesses would simply pay the ransom and get back to work. This company, however, didn’t want to spend the money, so they tried to restore their data without the backups… for two weeks. Think about this. This company, well known for its customer service was down for two weeks. Recent studies show the average cost for downtime is $100,000 per hour. You can do the math. $100,000 x 80 hours! This figure doesn’t even include losses to business reputation and customer confidence. And you can be sure that those losses definitely occurred in this scenario. Because most businesses can’t afford to be down for two weeks (or even two days!), we’ve put together these 5 tips to make sure you aren’t stuck in a penny-wise, pound-foolish situation. 1. Plan for business continuity/disaster recovery You must have an effective backup and disaster recovery (BCDR) plan in place that includes multiple redundancies. The end game is to eliminate single points of failure within your IT environment, whether that’s a person, a server, a switch or even your internet service. 2. Test your backups Daily testing to verify the success of your backup system is highly recommended. That way you won’t be held hostage by ransomware demands because you’ll have your data safe and easy to access. 3. Standardise your IT platform Non-standard IT environments are more likely to fail and difficult to restore. These are platforms that are not well known or are “cobbled” together by someone on the fringes of the IT industry. If you aren’t sure about your platform, have a security assessment done. Reinforce a commitment to a standardised platform with a strategy and supporting budget. 4. Primary and secondary internet connections By using unique internet options that have automatic failover, you’re covered if one connection goes down. By using SD-WAN (Software Defined Wide Area Network), you can reduce network downtime with real-time outage detection and automatic switch-over to working links. 5. Move to the cloud To help with redundancy, you should move files line-of-business apps and telephone functions to the cloud. Enterprise cloud infrastructure and VoIP keep your business up and running, even when your on-premise systems go down. Wouldn’t it be nice to simply go back 15 minutes in time and restore your data instead of paying a hefty ransom or manually restoring data for weeks? Make sure your IT provider is implementing these tips and protecting you from downtime. Is your company at risk of downtime? Contact Multi IT on 011 435 0450 for a risk assessment.

If you’re using Office 365 on a Mac computer, here’s some good news: Microsoft has introduced a new tool that will help you manage your Office 365 apps much more easily. My Workspace is a productivity-enhancing application that offers quick access to frequently used apps and files. Office workspace for Mac My Workspace sits in the Menu bar along the top of the screen and provides macOS users of Office 365 with a quick and easy access to pinned documents, recently accessed files, OneDrive files, Skype calls, and iCloud Calendars. It also makes their lives easier by offering quick buttons to Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, and OneNote. You can download the app for free at myworkspace.microsoft.com. The app is the brainchild of four interns at the Vancouver offices of Microsoft Garage, Microsoft’s Washington-based experimental projects division. It was created when the interns were tasked with developing a tool to “add value to a person’s day.” Benefits to macOS users For those who use several Office apps at once, My Workspace’s unobtrusive placement and long list of accessibility features will make their Office experience far more efficient. By clicking the icon located at the right-hand corner of the screen, you can get a quick overview of your day, respond to event invitations in your calendar, and join Skype calls. The intuitive tool determines recently opened files and displays them on the Recent tab, which gives you quick access to your most important documents. Under the Pinned column, you'll find a full list of recently opened files along with shareable links, making collaboration easier. Account management and customization features With My Workspace, you can easily access your Office 365 account settings, making account management a breeze. From this window you can manage Subscriptions, Security & privacy, App permissions, Install status, and other general settings. What’s more, My Workspace allows you to customize your App Settings, where you can set the number of events and recent documents you can see, and decide which apps you would like displayed in the launcher. Small yet substantial improvements such as My Workspace make Office 365 a thoroughly convenient business tool. There’s plenty of productivity-boosting functionalities within Office 365 regardless of device, and if you want to explore its useful features, call Multi IT today on 011 435 0450 for tips and recommendations.