No matter the scale or nature of your company, a password manager is critical to your business.
Small business leaders often take on multiple roles within companies. As your business grows in size and develops over time, these roles and responsibilities can increase tenfold.
Across all industries and company sizes, one thing remains constant: strong cybersecurity practices are essential. As your company expands in terms of clients and employees, the need to protect data—both yours and that of your customers—becomes more and more important while becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Your employees might be working remotely, using several devices including personal phones and laptops, while analog practices may have recently been converted to digital productivity apps—all of which is sure to streamline workflow, but calls for additional vigilance and investment in cybersecurity.
Whether or not your company has an IT department or a specialist to manage the cybersecurity aspect of your business, there are tools you can invest in right away to ensure your data stays safe. A password manager is a necessary first step to bolster data security, and can be integrated into your business without demanding too much time from business leaders.
Over the past year, small businesses have been quick to adopt new technology to help with productivity and workflows. In 2020, 72% of small businesses surveyed sped up their shift to digital in response to the pandemic. But the sudden change has left these companies more vulnerable to cyber threats than before. These are the top three most common vulnerabilities for small businesses:
- Compromised passwords: A report by Verizon revealed that almost a third of cybersecurity incidents led to data breaches at small businesses—44% of which resulted in compromised employee credentials.
- Social engineering and phishing attacks: Social engineering remains the most common method of hacking for businesses, with phishing being the key action. (Learn how different types of social engineering work from our interview with a pro.)
- Ransomware: According to this global ransomware report, in the past two years almost 80% of customers of small to medium businesses were hit by a ransomware attack.
As we established earlier, it’s common for small business leaders to take on many tasks outside of their scope. Small companies may not have the resources to hire an IT department, and for those who manage cybersecurity in-house, few have an employee dedicated solely to IT. For many companies, this means a number of risky practices are adopted, including:
- Storing passwords in unsecure places like over Slack and email or on spreadsheets
- Reusing passwords so they’re easy to remember
These facts are known to hackers, making small businesses targets for cyberattacks.
Additionally, lack of security practices means password retrieval can take up time and hinder productivity. Do any of these sound familiar?
- Employees often have to reset passwords when they forget
- Colleagues spend time tracking down passwords for shared accounts
- Business leaders or IT must recover access including 2FA codes for accounts managed by previous employees or someone who is out of the office
Not to mention, cyberattacks are costly. In 2020, the median cost of cybersecurity incidents to businesses with 1-9 employees was $7,000, increasing to over $130,000 for businesses with more than 250 employees.
A password manager like Dashlane is a must for any business. While small businesses are especially susceptible to hacks, investing in a password manager can severely decrease these risks. Here’s a quick recap of ways a tool like Dashlane can help your business:
- Passwords for joint accounts can be safely stored and shared within Dashlane—this means no more hunting for passwords or frustrating password resets.
- Your company can instate policies to rule out phishing attempts, especially over email, if passwords are auto-generated and unable to be shared outside of the Dashlane app.
- Passwords can be synced across devices, which is especially useful for remote employees using personal devices.
- Employee passwords are guaranteed to be secure whether they are generated by Dashlane automatically or tested by Dashlane tools to guarantee they’re nearly impossible to crack.
Ready to get started with protecting your company’s assets? Download this mini-guide to password managers for small businesses.
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