Password theft is a very scary, but real occurance. Did you know that 80% of all breaches come from a compromised password? With hackers taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis, they have ramped up their attacks. Educating your employees on how to not fall prey to savvy hackers and keeping them informed of the company’s security policy is a key line in your defenses. But that’s not enough, you need the right security in place to cover all your bases.

Question: How do I protect my organization from password theft?

Answer: I know what you’re thinking, “What if my user is one of the lucky ones to be the first to click the link and Cisco Umbrella does not have the domain blocked? Dual-factor or multi-factor authentication (MFA) comes to the rescue. MFA is an absolute must in today’s world. I use it for everything. Even my kids use it and they are only 5 and 7 so you know the deployment is pretty easy.

I recommend Cisco DUO for this. DUO is quick and easy to deploy with no required hardware and aligns with most secure remote access solutions, including VPN clients, remote access applications, and cloud-based services.

If a user’s device is already infected, a typical MFA tool would allow them access on a comprised device. DUO provides device trust to determine the health of a device before allowing it to connect. It enforces a health check at every sign on, so if a device is deemed risky it will be denied even with the correct credentials.

Again the same as Cisco Umbrella don’t take my word for it. Give it a test drive for a free DUO trial. And even better BlackHawk Data will deploy it for you at no cost! We like it that much.

About Jason

An industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in both network design and delivering expert-level solutions to clients, Jason supports a variety of industry-leading vendors, including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, F5 and Microsoft, enabling him to effectively lead BlackHawk Data’s Solutions Architects, Service Delivery, and Managed Services teams.