Defendify Championing ‘Identity Management Day’

Defendify is proud to be an Industry Champion for the second annual Identity Management Day,’ an annual awareness event that will take place on the second Tuesday in April each year. The inaugural Identity Management Day will be held on April 12, 2022. 

Identity Management Day, founded by the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) and supported by the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCSA), aims to educate and engage business leaders, IT decision-makers, and the public on the importance of identity management and key components. This includes data governance, identity-centric security best practices, processes, and technologies, focusing on the dangers of not properly securing identities and access credentials. 

Free Stolen Password Scan

To support this exciting initiative, organizations with growing security teams can get a free Stolen Password Scan from Defendify. One of many tools within Defendify’s all-in-one cybersecurity platform, the Stolen Password Scanner combines human and sophisticated Dark Web intelligence with search capabilities to identify, analyze and proactively monitor your organization’s compromised or stolen employee and customer data. This way, you know when a compromise might have happened, and it’s time to consider changing passwords.

Run a free stolen password scan at www.defendify.com/free-stolen-password-scan

Identity Management Awareness

According to Julie Smith, Executive Director of the IDSA: 

“The reality is that the data breaches you frequently read about are most often a result of identity abuse. – SolarWinds, Colonial Pipeline, the list goes on. These breaches often leverage poor identity management, such as weak passwords, not leveraging multi-factor authentication and single sign-on, leaving standing privileges open, and orphaned accounts.”

“The goal of Identity Management Day is to raise awareness, share best practices, and inspire individuals and organizations of all sizes to act so that failure to implement basic identity management best practices doesn’t result in the next headline breach.”

Tips to Keep Your Passwords Secure

The Identity Theft Resource Center® (ITRC) reported that the overall number of data compromises (1,862) is up more than 68 percent compared to 2020. The new record number of data compromises is 23 percent over the previous all-time high (1,506) set in 2017. Criminals use these stolen credentials to make ransomware and phishing attacks against businesses. 

One way to strengthen your cybersecurity is by having specific password policies and guidelines that dictate the complexity of passwords that employees should be using and whether they can recycle their passwords (use them across multiple accounts). 

 Here are a few tips to keep your passwords and identity secure:

1. Avoid personal information. Important names, dates, hobbies, sports teams, addresses, phone numbers, and other common data are easier to guess with “open-source intelligence gathering.” A cyber attacker can quickly obtain this information by browsing a social media account.
2. Make it long. When you add characters to a password, the number of possible combinations for a brute force attack grows exponentially. Experts recommend at least 13 characters, but this recommendation will increase as brute force attacks become faster and more advanced.
3. Don’t recycle passwords. It’s important not to re-use a password, no matter how strong. If one account is breached, the first thing an attacker will do is try the same login for other, potentially more critical, sites.
4. Use Passphrases. A long, strong, and memorable passphrase is one excellent method. For example, use a string of unrelated words, ideally with extra characters (e.g., “hammer-jumping Fuzzy Creator.” Or try a longer sentence like, “I want to eat some cotton candy!”. And you can find a whole lot more from ConnectSafely.

Want to learn how to keep your passwords off of the dark web?

Join our webinar on Tuesday, April 26th at 1 PM EST

About the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA)

The IDSA is a group of identity and security vendors, solution providers, and practitioners that acts as an independent source of thought leadership, expertise, and practical guidance on identity-centric approaches to security for technology professionals. The IDSA is a nonprofit that facilitates community collaboration to help organizations reduce risk by providing education, best practices, and resources.

To learn more about and get involved in Identity Management Day 2022, please visit www.identitymanagementday.org and check out #IDMgmtDay2022 and #BeIdentitySmart on Twitter and LinkedIn.