What Is A Password Expiration Policy?

Having the right strategy in place to protect your company’s passwords is essential. Credentials like usernames and passcodes make up a significant component of enterprise security. Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to find the right balancing act between protecting your team and maintaining good usability.

A password expiration policy used to be one of the most common ways to keep your organization secure, by asking team members to regularly update the passwords for their most essential log-in systems. By causing passwords to expire after a certain length of time, companies could ensure that the same codes weren’t used for too long. The question is, are expiration systems still a good idea today, and should you be using them?

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Is An Expiration Policy A Good Idea?

An expiration policy has a lot of benefits to offer your team. If your employees are frequently changing their passwords, there’s less of a risk that someone might discover an old password and log into your network. However, many companies have started to ignore expiration strategies because they’re too complicated to maintain.

Asking employees to change their credentials as part of your password policy is crucial to ensure long-term security, but it’s also frustrating and annoying for staff members who find it difficult to keep track of numerous credentials. If your team members use a range of digital services every day, they’re likely to struggle when they frequently change the passwords for those tools.

Fortunately, there is a way to make enterprise password management easier. Today’s organizations can access software solutions that store passwords on the behalf of their employees and encrypt credential information behind one master username and password. This means that staff only need to remember a single code to get onto the systems they need.

Having the best password managers in place can also support companies in ensuring that their staff remains compliant with security and privacy policies, wherever they are. Even if your staff members are working remotely, you can still send them prompts when they need to update a password or share access with another team member.

Setting Your Password Policies

There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for ensuring your employees and the data your company collects remains secure and protected. The best thing that companies can do is make sure they’re aware of the latest security best practices in their industry, and that they’re taking steps to defend themselves against common threats. For some companies concerned about unauthorized people getting access to essential enterprise data, an expiration policy could be an essential component of maintaining a safe and compliant business.

However, these strategies are only effective if your employees actually follow the best practice guidelines and rules that you create. Teams need a comprehensive password policy as part of their strategy for ongoing security, privacy, and compliance. A holistic view of security that considers everything from password management, to single sign-on and multi-factor authentication will help businesses of all sizes to prepare for a future where we’re using more digital services and passwords than ever before.

If you are interested in even more technology-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.

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