Cloud computing has gone mainstream in the United States, with over 96 percent of organizations using it in some form. Currently, more than 81 percent of US enterprises have implemented a multi-cloud strategy. The benefits of cloud computing are many. Any business that’s yet to embrace this revolutionary technology will lag behind in today’s increasingly competitive marketplace. With cloud computing, you can operate at scale regardless of the size of your business. Cloud computing also helps you manage your IT infrastructure while keeping your capital overheads low. But there are security risks involved, which makes cloud encryption an essential security measure to keep your business safe from cyber-attacks. Indeed, any business needs a foolproof IT security strategy in place, with such practices as cloud encryption and password management among the best practices for safeguarding business data. But exactly what does cloud encryption mean? Why is encrypted cloud storage essential? How can you make cloud encryption more effective? If you’re asking yourself these questions, you’ve come to the right place. In this comprehensive guide, we tell you all you need to know about cloud encryption so you can make informed decisions. 1. Encryption Guards Against Breaches Data breaches are more common than you may imagine. In 2020, the total number of records exposed globally grew to a staggering 36 billion.  It’s a worrying statistic, given that a single breach usually sets back the business several million dollars. The losses are more substantial when the breach takes a considerable time to detect.   When you store your data in the cloud, you’re no longer in complete control of what happens to it. Assuming you run your applications on a hybrid or public cloud, you’re forced to put your trust in a third-party. For this reason, you need to stay on top of everything security-wise. Choose a cloud service provider who understands their responsibility when it comes to security. More importantly, go the extra mile to keep your data encrypted.  When you utilize cloud encryption management tools, you secure your business and prevent unauthorized people from accessing your private business information. In other words, data breaches are just about impossible. But even if someone does steal the data, it’s hardly possible for them to read it if it’s encrypted.  2. It’s Easier to Manage Remote Work Many organizations today have remote workers spread all over the world. Cloud computing has significantly boosted the remote work arrangement by making it easy for employees to access critical business applications no matter where they are across the globe. This boosts flexibility in both hiring and working hours.  The main challenge with having remote offices is keeping your business information secure. Some of your employees may not adhere to IT security best practices, which poses an inherent risk to your data. Many of them might be using personal laptops or phones to do business tasks and surfing on public Wi-Fi. Think about what would happen if sensitive financial or organization service data landed in the wrong hands. Thanks to cloud encryption, you don’t need to worry too much about these incidents. You can encrypt all your data and deliver encryption keys to your remote workers during office workers only. Once office workers are over, the data becomes utterly unusable to anyone. 3. It Helps With Disaster Recovery Cloud encryption is only part of a more comprehensive disaster recovery strategy. No one knows when disaster will strike, which is why you need to stay prepared at all times. In case of a fire, flooding, or some other natural cause, essential business data could get wiped out in the process. Organizations that securely store their data in the cloud do not need to worry about losing their data in case of a disaster. You can easily access the files you need to keep operations running when the unexpected happens.  4. Encryption Helps You Comply With Regulations There are protection standards in place that you need to take seriously. Such standards include GDPR and HIPAA and are meant to ensure the security and integrity of customers’ data. Failing to adhere to these regulations can lead to serious consequences, including hefty fines.  Given that much of the business information you store in the cloud is customer data, you need to go above and beyond to protect it. If this information becomes compromised, you’ll be answerable to the regulator. For businesses in highly regulated sectors such as health, insurance, finance, and banking, the standards are even more exacting. The risks involved in these sectors multiply the importance of cloud encryption.  5. Control Access levels A significant percentage of organizations that use the cloud accidentally leak data to the public from time to time. This can severely compromise business integrity and give competitors an edge.  Most leaks aren’t caused by malicious intent. They result from poor cybersecurity best practices. If the data is encrypted, it’s no good to the public even when leaked. Go a step further to control who accesses which data. Once you’ve encrypted data, you can give the encryption keys to only individuals who need them. This way, it’s easier to prevent errors that may lead to data leaks. Cloud Encryption Can Keep Your Data Safe Any organization that uses the cloud must come up with a sound cloud security strategy to keep essential data safe from unwanted access. At the center of this strategy should be cloud encryption due to its effectiveness in rendering records useless for anyone without the required decryption key. Are you interested in reliable cloud security solutions? Please, contact us today.

Did you know that hackers attack every 39 seconds? Cybersecurity is a huge threat to individuals and businesses. Technology constantly changes and it can be hard to keep up with the newest security trends. But it’s also more important than it ever was. You don’t have to be an IT expert to keep yourself well protected online. Here are a few professional IT security tips that you can use when you’re browsing. Stay Away From Anything Suspicious You can find suspicious links, photos and pop-ups all around the internet. One of the most common places to encounter it is very close to home — in your email’s inbox. Hackers love to use this as a place to target unsuspecting individuals. They do things such as spoofing the email addresses of people that you know and trust to get you to reply or click on elements of the email. By doing this, they create trust with you so that you’ll be more likely to fall into their trap. When receiving any email, whether it’s from someone you know or don’t, always treat it as suspicious. Unless you’re expecting the email (confirmation of an account you created, an update email from a close friend), be wary of links and images within it. You can contact the company or individual directly if you suspect it’s not truly from them. Though it’s more work, it can save you time and money. You don’t want to deal with the terrifying occurrence of having your information stolen. Protect Your Passwords For your personal security, you know not to give out your passwords to anyone. But hackers are getting better at accessing this through breaches and other methods. This can be worrying if you use the same password and username combo for multiple sites or apps. Once a hacker gets ahold of this combo, then they have the power to reach many of your accounts. It’s becoming more important than ever to keep your passwords protected. One of the best ways you can do this is by using a password manager. It will keep your sensitive data secure using a few different methods. Facial recognition and fingerprint ID are two ways to keep your passwords out of malicious hands. Keep Learning Since you’ve read this article, you’ve probably learned a thing or two about keeping yourself protected online. In the digital world, this is becoming more important every day. One of the best things that you can do for yourself is to stay up-to-date on what scams and breaches are happening. As technology evolves, educate yourself on what you can do to stay safe. The more you know about cybersecurity, the safer you’ll be online. Take Your IT Security Seriously Once you know how to secure your computer, you can feel safe while browsing online. Since scammers and hackers are becoming more skilled, your personal security is important. With these IT security tips, you’re on your way to internet safety. One of the first steps that you should take is to protect yourself with a password manager. At LogMeOnce, we offer a secure and beginner-friendly option for keeping your passwords protected. Are you looking to upgrade your cybersecurity? Sign up to start protecting yourself today!

Enterprise password management is something that quite a lot of companies are taking for granted. They are fully aware of password security threats, but they still don’t take the right steps for making sure that their passwords are secure and, thus, their crucial and sensitive information safe in their systems. What most business owners and employees do is use very weak passwords, and they even reuse them many times, without even thinking about how vulnerable they make their companies. Why don’t both small companies and enterprises make their password security one of the top priorities? It is usually because they are more afraid of forgetting their passwords than they are afraid of potential hackers. Nevertheless, hackers are always lurking behind the corner and you never know when they are going to strike. That is why you should make sure that your enterprise password management is top-notch, that is, develop a good password management strategy and strengthen your passwords, ensuring that no potential hacker could ever find their way through and compromise your company. With that in mind, take a look at the essential steps that you need to take in order to manage your passwords effectively and always keep them safe and secure.   Password Managers as the Best Solutions for Enterprise Password Management The best solution for effective enterprise password management is a good password manager. It’s not some guy telling you how to manage your passwords, but actually a software application or online service that stores all your passwords in an encrypted database and keeps them secure at all times. As such, they completely eliminate potential password security risks and, of course, help you have a peace of mind. What most good and reliable password managers include is Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication. It is a great enterprise password management practice, as it allows you to use a single username and password to gain access to many connected systems. A lot of people find SSO perfect, because they don’t need to remember a lot of different usernames and passwords, so they are not stressed and frustrated about forgetting logins for their important accounts. You certainly know that having one and the same login credentials for multiple systems puts all of them at risk. If someone gains access to one of your accounts, they gain access to each and every one of them. However, with a good password manager, although you do have one set of login credentials for accessing all the other IDs and passwords, you have the option of enabling automatic password change, so that potential hackers can never gain access to your accounts if they do manage to somehow crack your encrypted password. Password managers provide you with a lot of other useful features and benefits, so make sure you find a reliable one that will fit your business needs and keep all of your systems absolutely safe from any potential security risks.   Long + Complex = Strong Passwords In order to create strong passwords, you need to make sure that they consist of at least 8 characters, but I highly recommend that you make it at least 12 characters. These characters need to be a combination of both lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols, so that they can be tough, if not impossible, to crack. What does it mean to have a complex password? A complex password is not something like “M@yTheForceBeWithU”, even though it is long and contains “@” instead of “a”, since it still contains dictionary words, not to mention that various pieces of software that hackers use can see through your strategy of replacing letters with symbols. A strong password would be, for instance, “M@yTh3F0Rc3B3W1thU135!”. It contains a lot of numbers and some special characters, which would make it impossible to crack. It may be a bit difficult to remember such passwords, especially when there are a lot of them, but if you use a password manager, not only will it generate strong passwords for you, but it will also remember them for you. All you need to do is remember one master password for accessing all your accounts.   Frequent Password Change for Effective Enterprise Password Management Having a password manager, together with really strong passwords, will definitely make your accounts and systems safe and secure. However, changing your passwords on a regular basis will provide you with even higher security. This is especially important if a hacker does somehow crack your master password, because a password manager can change all your other passwords and prevent the hacker from accessing your accounts. It can take about a month or even quite longer for someone to crack very strong passwords, which is exactly why changing them frequently will keep them secure and safeguard your systems. However, you should never reuse your passwords because, if anyone manages to breach one of your systems, they will definitely try and use that particular password to access your other systems. This is again where a password manager comes into play, since it can generate strong passwords for you, as already discussed. Most importantly, it can automate the process, so you don’t have to worry about remembering to change your passwords.   Implementing Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Both 2FA and MFA provide you with an extra layer of security, so that a single point of failure can never take place and compromise your systems. Implementing one of those methods of computer access control means that, beside your master password for accessing all your accounts, you need to provide additional pieces of evidence to that particular authentication mechanism. Those include security questions, such as “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” and “What’s your first pet’s name?”. It is absolutely crucial that you don’t provide correct answers, but rather think of something completely unrelated, such as “Gr33kG00D3$$7519” as your mother’s maiden name, for instance. No one would be able to guess that you used “Greek goddess” for her name, especially because of all the numbers

If you are working in a business environment, you most certainly have to deal with a large amount of confidential data and various accounts, and your primary goal should be maximum security. A team password manager is a great solution for businesses that want to boost their security and help their employees manage all of their passwords in an effective way. Nowadays, we are all required to come up with numerous passwords for each and every online account, and they need to be unique and strong to turn the hackers away. However, remembering all of them can sometimes be close to impossible, but with the implementation of a team password manager, these problems are far behind us! So, let us focus on some major do’s and don’ts of this powerful tool, as well as the features you should pay attention on and its pros and cons for your business! 1st Do: Create a strong password A lot of people have a tendency to come up with some really bad and oversimplified passwords which can be hacked effortlessly. If you include your or your loved ones’ birthdays, their names or the name of your favorite band in your password, chances are that it can easily be figured out. If you are already aware of that, you will probably try to come up with something a bit more complex, for example adding your favorite number, your pet’s name and your mom’s maiden name to the same password, but this is also a huge don’t, as hackers are knowledgeable of techniques to crack such passwords as well, for example a tactic called brute force. That is why you should always try to create at least a 12-character password and pick something that is really difficult to guess. And to achieve an even greater level of security, always go for two-factor authentication when possible.  2nd Do: Educate your team members If you have learned to keep your passwords safe, you should pass on that knowledge to your employees to make sure you are on the same page. You can, for instance, provide them with reminders to change their passwords on a regular basis and explain the importance of doing that. There are numerous articles online about companies being hacked due to their employees’ ignorance that you would want your team members to read in order to prevent them from making those same mistakes. 3rd Do: Implement a team password management tool Without the use of the right technology, there are always good chances for human error. Just consider all of the passwords your employees need to remember and use every day and how difficult that can be. This is why using a software to take care of all this is recommended. Single sign-on (SSO) is one method to take into consideration, as it provides one account that your team members must access to get further access to other apps and accounts that they need. It will serve you as a vault which stores all of the existing passwords. Moreover, there are password management tools which might come in handy. 1st Don’t: Reusing your passwords You should by any means restrain from using your password multiple times, because if a hacker manages to crack it, they will have immediate access to all your accounts. It is surprising how many people are prone to making this mistake, and hackers are well-aware of that fact. This is why you should never reuse or recycle your passwords, rather make sure you have a different and an equally unique one for each of your accounts. 2nd Don’t: Keeping the same password for ages In a majority of cases, people won’t even be aware of the fact their computers or accounts have been compromised. If someone hacked your system, they would make sure you don’t notice them. Because of this, you need to change all of your passwords on a regular basis. If a hacker has gained access to your system, simply changing your password will prevent them from accessing it again and causing an incredible amount of further damage. 3rd Don’t: Leaving your passwords unsafe Sometimes, the biggest threat are not the hackers but keeping your passwords unsafe. Some people tend to write down the password they cannot remember on a piece of paper and leave it in a drawer or even on the desk in their office. It is not necessary to start explaining why this might be a terrible idea. The soon as you leave your office your password may (and in the majority of cases – will) be stolen. Always make sure your passwords are kept safe and can be accessed only by you. Must-have features Now that you know more about the management of your passwords, you are probably considering the idea of implementing a good team password manager to your business to make your life easier, so let’s focus on some characteristics it should possess: Monitoring tools and administrative controls – they include team sharing, dashboards, auditing, analytics etc. Usability – the program you choose has to be simple and intuitive so that all team members are willing to use it regularly, which means that it should be engaging, effective, efficient, error tolerant and easy to learn. Password sharing options – this is particularly important as it will prevent you employees from sharing their passwords via email or chat which a very risky thing to do. Instead, a good tool will enable you to share your passwords in a flexible and completely safe way. Ultimate security – any password manager’s primary role is to offer you security and although they are all encrypted, not all encryptions are effective enough. The most recommended encryption method you should opt for is AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key length of 256 bits. To sum up, if you carefully examine some of the given ways to protect your most valuable data, the security of your business will be guaranteed!  

Although Google, Microsoft, Apple, social networks, and basically every platform that you use on an everyday basis, insist on password safety, not many people really take it as an important matter. If you’d pay attention the next time you’re scrolling through your Newsfeed on Facebook for example, chances are you will encounter at least one article that’s about stolen identities. This should show you how common this type of crime is nowadays, and how easier it is for criminals to access your data because of the internet. Have you ever wondered how long would it take for someone to crack your password? Different factors affect that time frame, and as a matter of fact, the plausibility as well. So, go through the following password security tips in order to find out how to protect yourself by learning about the best practices that will ensure your safety. Password Security Tips Are Quite Useful You’d be surprised with how much difference you can make just by giving your passwords a thought. Most people use their favorite items, important dates, words they often use, or something they find funny. Well, a mischievous person who wants to get to your private information would just need to scroll through your social media platforms and they would find out everything they need quite quickly. You should also stay away from commonly misspelled words as well as combinations like “asdfgh” – anyone with a bit of skill when it comes to password cracking will have that in mind. The same goes for jargons and words and phrases which are trending – considering the fact that everyone uses it, the chances of them ending up in someone’s password are very good. So, by just giving it a thought and staying away from the most commonly used combinations, you did half the work. Security Questions Are as Important The easiest thing for someone who wants to intrude your privacy is to click on the “I forgot my password button”. The following process to retrieve your password – which is something you’re probably familiar with – is about answering security questions. These questions are as important as the password itself when it comes to password safety. So, make sure that you go further from using your mother’s elementary school (which is also a piece of information that’s quite simple to get to). In order to achieve a high level of password security, you should use something which isn’t as obvious. The best thing would be to come up with your own if that possibility is offered and steer clear from generic ones. LogMeOnce allows users to create their own security questions and answer. Be Creative with Your Passwords As we mentioned, if you stay away from the most commonly used combination, you did half the work. However, you should still come up with a powerful password. Basically, you should come up with a combination that you don’t have any attachments to, so it’s impossible to crack by someone who paid a visit to your profiles on social networks. Also, you shouldn’t hesitate from using symbols if that’s an option. The same goes for numbers and random caps – if you incorporate all of this, your password safety will be ensured. Don’t Use Just One Password Furthermore, you should be aware of the fact how dangerous it is to use only one password, or its variations, for all your accounts and profiles. A criminal who manages to crack your password on one of them will have access to everything you have online. So, make sure you use different ones for each of the accounts. Keep Your Passwords a Secret Many people don’t understand the danger of blurting their passwords to their friends and members of their family. Well, probably the most repeated situation that you must have heard about is having someone intrude your privacy. It’s not that your close friends and family members will intentionally misuse your passwords – they might share it with someone by accident. That is why you should be highly secretive when it comes to your passwords and keep them to yourself. Memorize It, Don’t Write It Down The obvious thing to do when you come up with a strong password that matches all the criteria we mentioned so far is to write it down on a piece of paper. Although this sounds harmless and practical, the chances of that this post-it containing your password getting lost and even stolen do exist. You should be smart about this and memorize your passwords instead of writing them down. How Long Does It Take to Crack Your Password? For further protection, you should ask yourself this question – are your passwords easy to crack even though you think you created a strong one? Well, you can always ask one of your friends to try and crack it, but you should have in mind that a criminal is probably more skillful than they are in this process. So, the logical thing is to ask a pro to do it – the Mugshot team has a lot of experience in this area and you can ask them to try and go through your security measurements. You should also know that they are all about passwords safety – Mugshot offers a list of services including snapping a photo or making a video of someone who tried to misuse your information, as well as providing you with their location.   With the password security tips listed above, you are set to go. The process of coming up with a strong password should become part of your routine – make sure to use different combinations and that they are all as strong. And don’t forget about security questions, because they are very important.