Computer "Tip of the Day" 09-23

Require individual user accounts for each employee on business computers and for business applications.

Set up a separate account for each individual and require that good passwords be used for each account. Good passwords consist of a random sequence of letters, numbers, and special characters – and are at least 8 to 10 characters long.

To better protect systems and information, ensure that all employees use computer accounts which do not have administrative privileges. This will stop any attempt – automated or not – by employees to install unauthorized software. If an employee uses a computer with an administrative user account, then any malicious code that they activate (deliberately or by deception) will be able to install itself on their computer – since the malicious code will have the same administrative rights as the user account has.

Without individual accounts for each user, you may find it difficult to hold anyone accountable for data loss or unauthorized data manipulation.

Passwords which stay the same, will, over time, be shared and become common knowledge to an individual user’s coworkers. Therefore, passwords should be changed at least every 3 months.