In the digital world, hackers and scammers have found ways to become more and more sophisticated in their attempts to gain unauthorized access to your confidential information. Oftentimes, the most common vulnerabilities they look to exploit is one most people don't think much about - their passwords.
Password security should always be a priority when it comes to your Network for Good services, because your username and password are used to "authenticate" (log you in) to multiple platforms, such as your Donor Management platform or your Fundraising Pages. We want to ensure that you are aware of how to reduce the risk of someone commiting "credential theft," to minimize the potential of your donor data being compromised.
Here are some tips on how to protect yourself from credential theft:
Create a Strong Password
Strong passwords make it significantly more challenging for hackers to use "brute force" to get into your systems.
10-character minimum length for passwords
Use a variety of lowercase/uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols
Do not use personal information that can be socially engineered through social media platforms (i.e. the name of your dog, your mother's maiden name, etc.)
Avoid Password Re-use
When using the same password on multiple accounts, it can leave you vulnerable to being what is called a "Single Point of Failure" (SPoF). This means that a hacker can use that same password to gain access to multiple services, such as your email and bank account - or, in this instance, your donor's "personal identifying information" (also known as PII) found within your Donor Management system.
We strongly recommend that you create a unique password for each of your online accounts.
Avoid sharing admin credentials
For users who are granted "admin" level privileges, sharing a password can mean leaving your private data vulnerable to cyber criminals.
We strongly recommend that every individual have their own unique login and password and that passwords are not shared between colleagues. Our Donor Management system provides several "admin" levels to accommodate different levels of access for individuals as well.
Download a trusted password management tool
So - long, complicated passwords that might not be the easiest to remember? Not to worry, we have a recommendation that'll make it easy to keep track of all of those secure credentials!
Password managers are a great online tool for securely storing and managing all of your online credentials. Below are a few well-recognized password managers that store your passwords in an encrypted database, and require a master password to authenticate.
These password managers also can generate secure passwords for you to use, and allow you to share passwords with specific individuals of your choosing without revealing your login credentials. In other words, you can "share" your passwords without actually sharing your passwords!