{"id":5015,"date":"2020-08-03T16:10:08","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T20:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/identity-management\/?p=5015"},"modified":"2020-08-04T09:13:44","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T13:13:44","slug":"how-hackers-can-steal-your-passwords-and-how-password-managers-can-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solutionsreview.com\/identity-management\/how-hackers-can-steal-your-passwords-and-how-password-managers-can-help\/","title":{"rendered":"How Hackers Can Steal Your Passwords – And How Password Managers Can Help"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/p>\n

How can hackers steal your and your employees’ passwords? How can password managers help secure your passwords and mitigate hackers\u2019 most common tactics?<\/span><\/p>\n

Passwords can\u2019t protect your business or your employees. Unfortunately, there is no sugarcoating for this fact. Hackers can eventually, with the right tactics and tools, eventually get your employees\u2019 passwords. If your enterprise only uses single-factor authentication, then you lay out the welcome mat for external threat actors.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, your enterprise can (and should) embrace multifactor authentication as a way to make hackers jobs that much harder. Every obstacle and factor between the access request and the access deters or deflects hackers en masse. However, passwords will probably remain a critical component of your identity and access management<\/a> for years to come.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You need to secure those passwords. Therefore, you need to understand all of the ways hackers can steal your passwords.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n


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How Hackers Can Steal Your Passwords<\/b><\/h2>\n

1. Just Guessing Them<\/b><\/h3>\n

Yes, it appears that hackers can straight-up guess your credentials. Partially, this stems from employees and other users creating weak passwords. Research indicates that users frequently call upon passwords that would be jokes in other contexts; these include \u201c123456\u201d and \u201cpassword.\u201d Thus, hackers don\u2019t even need to exert effort in cracking these passwords.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Even in cases where users don\u2019t use such pathetically weak passwords, that doesn\u2019t necessarily stop hackers. They could glean a lot of information about their targets through social media posts and other publicly available information. Then, hackers could try passwords based on the information gathered, with a few common variations (using \u201c3\u201d to replace \u201cE\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Alternatively, the information publicly available online could help external threat actors bypass passwords altogether. After all, aren\u2019t the security questions to password resets things like \u201cWhat was your high school mascot?\u201d and \u201cWhat is your mother\u2019s maiden name?\u201d For a more direct approach, hackers could also create a social media \u201cquiz\u201d and simply ask users to supply the information they need.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, this assumes that users employ distinct, one-account-only passwords. Yet this rarely proves true.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Gathering Passwords From Previous Breaches<\/b><\/h3>\n

Users reuse their passwords for any number of reasons. First, many users worry about forgetting their passwords and having to go through the arduous process of password resetting. Second, users face an unprecedented number of accounts to remember\u2014possibly numbering in the hundreds. Third, users want to just log in and do their jobs, so they gravitate to easy passwords that they can plugin on the fly. If they reuse a password, then that\u2019s just one faster login.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So hackers often don\u2019t need to seek out target passwords. All they need to do is wait for another data breach that leaks passwords and just try the list on the target. Every data breach feeds into another one, and with every reused password your own employees open that attack vector more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Stealing Passwords Directly Via Phishing <\/b><\/h3>\n

Of course, hackers could always just steal users\u2019 passwords directly. They could do this through phishing attacks, disguising their attacks as urgent communications from banks or other critical institutions. Conversely, they could use a spear-phishing attack, using public information to make the attack feel more real than other messages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Employees need to understand the importance of their passwords and how to recognize what messages might be fraudulent. If hackers keep trying to steal your passwords, what can your business do to prevent them?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How Password Managers Can Help<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

A password manager acts as a secure vault for all of your employees’ passwords and credentials. Instead of having to manually type in a password, a password manager can autofill the login; all the employee needs to do is click the button to login and away they go.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Further, because it stores all of the passwords, password managers encourage employees to create new, advanced passwords hackers can\u2019t easily crack. This alleviates two problems at once, both simple or weak passwords and repeated passwords.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, dozens of providers offer password managers with unique features. To help you find a password manager that can prove the most effective for your business processes and identity management, we provide this brief Directory of Password Managers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n