Don’t reuse passwords, warns privacy commissioner

A “recent trend in breaches” has prompted Canada’s privacy commissioner to urge individuals to stop reusing passwords and businesses to oblige employees to reset their passwords.

Several breaches reported

In recent months, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner has received several breach reports from companies that suspect their systems were accessed by individuals using valid customer or employee login data. The criminals are thought to have “obtained data from previous, unrelated breaches that resulted in username and passwords combinations being published online.”

It’s suggested companies take several precautions such as requiring employees to change passwords if they have previously used them elsewhere and requiring multifactor authentication for employees accessing company servers remotely.

‘Consider several best practices’

In choosing a password, the office reminds people to consider the following:

• Avoid obvious choices such as mother’s maiden name, child’s name, pet’s name or any reference someone may be able to guess through information you have posted elsewhere;
• Make them eight or more characters;
• Use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols;
• If you need to write them down to remember them, keep them offline in a secret, secure, locked place.