Password policy – is yours tough enough?

(Infographic from Daily Infographic)

At my workplace, we just switched email providers so the issue of passwords came up. Everyone was assigned the same password, which struck me as a policy that would leave us unnecessarily vulnerable.

The thinking was that if any of the employees were to leave, we’d have access to their accounts. I explained we have access anyway because administrators could simply reset the passwords and get what they need.

Here are some arguments against monitoring your employees’ passwords from Acroment:

• Once you assign a password to your workers, what’s to keep them from changing it?
  You can chase your tail all day long trying to keep up with changing passwords. You probably have better things to do.
• It turns out that most companies that have a policy of assigned passwords, put less energy into making up more secure passwords.
  This was certainly true at my company where our password is one word, no numbers, no symbols.
• There’s less accountability when everyone has the same password.
  What if you have a disgruntled employee who uses the common password to get into a co-worker’s account to send athreatening email to your largest customer? You would have no way of knowing who actually sent that email and the outcome would be very frustrating.
• System administrators can easily reset passwords.
  Resetting passwords is quick, easy and certainly much easier than trying to keep track of everyone’s passwords. In addition, if you need to access an employee’s email, he will know you did it because the password’s been reset.

So, what’s the policy on passwords at your workplace? Is yours vulnerable?