Quick Tip: A password management solution simplifies compliance for HIPAA, SOX and more.
In our final blog in this series on how passwords help you protect your most important business data, we look at how rock-solid password management can also protect you from legal trouble and compliance.
These days, most businesses are subject to data protection laws or regulations of one kind or another. Some come with pretty stiff penalties.
To help demonstrate you’re compliant with access control requirements, you should have clear policies and procedures about who gets access to what, what kind of passwords are required, and how often those passwords are updated. If you don’t have a way of automatically tracking and logging password use, it’s very hard to enforce those kinds of policies — or to show you’ve followed them after an incident.
A password management solution can help by giving you a full view of the passwords and permissions associated with users in your business. You can see which accounts they have access to, exactly when they sign into them, any changes they make to system credentials, and other activities.
Everything under control
With a password management solution, you can assign permissions and adjust them as people change jobs within your company — and when they leave. You can be sure everyone has access to everything they need to do their jobs, without having access they don’t need, which could introduce security risks.
This kind of window into your password environment means you have a better chance of spotting unusual activity that could mean a breach. If your log shows an employee logged into an account in the middle of the night from a different country, there’s a good chance his or her account has been compromised. Catching that early can help you act quickly to assess any damage and change affected passwords right away.
Proof at your fingertips
Proper password management saves you a massive amount of time and worry if you ever have to produce records to demonstrate you’re compliant with access control requirements of privacy and data security laws or regulations. The required information is readily available so you don’t have to devote hours of staff time to tracking it all down. And you have less of a chance of being found non-compliant because you missed a step or couldn’t find something.
Simplify compliance requirements by using a good password management solution
That wraps up our blog series on password best practices. Securing your business from cyber-threats is one of our most important jobs, so we hope this series has helped you see how a strong password management system can make it easier for your employees to sign in to their accounts and keep your business safer. As always, if you have more questions or want to talk, contact us here. We're always happy to help!
Or click here today to take advantage of our special password management offer!
