We recently received a support email about how Password Center handles a 72 character Active Directory password. I read it in disbelief. Seventy-two characters? That’s the alphabet 2, almost 3, times over. How does anyone remember a 72 character password? Turns out, pretty darned easily. Because the best Active Directory password isn’t a word at all…it’s a…
You think you have it bad with your internal users forgetting their Active Directory passwords? Harumph. That’s nothing compared to your legions of external users who only log in occasionally. You are going to get a ton of calls if you don’t have a selfservice password reset solution for them. The issue? We are seeing…
We can all agree that a self service password reset solution saves the company money: fewer help desk calls, less productivity lost and most importantly fewer help desk calls. That’s the holy grail of IT: help your users without them picking up the phone. But how do you get users to actually enroll and use…
Users forgetting their passwords is a time honored tradition dating back to the simultaneous invention of the user and the password. Just as Alexander Graham Bell’s first words were “Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you”, the first user’s first words were “what is my password again?” So we give them…
I read an article today that stated that the help desk costs related to Active Directory password resets are as high as $300,000 per year for a 1,000 employee company. That seems pretty high. Basically, that’s stating that in a 1,000 employee company, there are 3 to 5 full time help desk employees furiously resetting…
The calculus is pretty established that complex passwords = better security. The corollary to this is that complex passwords = more help desk calls. This is just one of those truths due to the fragility of human memory. So software has evolved to solve this equation. Understanding that passwords will be forgotten and that help…
There is an annoying tension in IT between security and productivity; complexity and simplicity; passwords and users. The more complex a password is, the more secure it is. And the more likely it will be forgotten. Think about it, who can remember $n0OpD@wGl33t? Or type it without your hands cramping? But, your main goal is…
I was recently searching on Google about Active Directory security group expiration (because GroupID does that and I wanted to make sure Google knows that we do it) and came across an interesting post on the petri.il forums. This post details a script that will give a list of user accounts that have a password set to…
While authentication and authorization are often used interchangeably, both are considered as separate processes that are used to protect an organization from cyber-attacks. Authentication and authorization are significant parts of the first line of defense against data theft. As data breaches continue to increase in frequency and scale, strong authentication and authorization techniques should be…
More than half of the global workforce is working remotely and as the pandemic continues to threaten health, we are looking at a prolonged period of hybrid working – from home and office in different proportions. One year later… In March 2020, companies across the US abruptly shuttered their offices and instructed employees to work…