Safety first: Password management best practices for dealerships.

What we’ll cover:

• Best practices for creating secure passwords for your business
• Tips for remembering your passwords
• Other tools to help you keep your dealership’s data safe

In today’s world, managing an endless stream of passwords is a fact of life and business. With the security of your dealership and critical customer information at stake, it’s important to commit to stronger passwords for all of your business’s accounts and devices. Here’s how you and your employees can take steps to build stronger passwords:

Begin with these password essentials
Password security requires building unique, complex passwords that can’t be easily guessed. Start with these three best practices:

• Make them long (aim for at least 10 to 12 characters, but 16 to 18 or even 20 is even better)
• Avoid using common names, places and dictionary words
• Use a random mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters along with numbers and symbols

Try turning a sentence or phrase into a password
Creating strong passwords is one thing, remembering them is another. To give your brain a break, consider a sentence or phrase you can easily recall. Then, combine that approach with the tips from above — by spelling out the phrase with letters, numbers and symbols — and you’ll be on your way to a secure password. For example:

I used to live in Wisconsin= iu$ed2l!vNW!
Summer rain clouds = suM3rra!nclwdZ

The more nonsensical it appears to others, the better.

Tip: While symbols and numbers are a great way to mix up your passwords, avoid common letter substitutions like @ for a and 0 for o.

Give your memory a fighting chance
If you want to harness the power of a memorization method backed by science, apply the PAO (Person-Action-Object) method to your password creation. With this method, you visualize a person, an action and an object, then create a story for those images. The more unusual, the better. For instance, if your words are:

Person: Tom Hanks
Action: reading
Object: coffee

Then the story would be: Tom Hanks is reading with a coffee. The easier it is to visualize and remember, the better. Once you have that story down, create a password using the tips from above, like THnxRd!ngcf3e.

Tip: Don’t base your password on personal information that would be easy to find online like your birthday, address, family names or anniversaries.

Don’t reuse the same password
Tempting as it is, using the same password for all your devices and accounts is the virtual equivalent of putting all your eggs in one basket. One data breach could put all of your information in jeopardy, everywhere you’ve used that password.

Password security requires building unique, complex passwords that can’t be easily guessed.

Enable multi-factor authentication
Many sites and services have added additional layers of security to help protect users and avoid account breaches. Depending on the site, it may email or text a code to confirm your identity every time you log on. By enabling multi-factor authentication when possible, you can add another barrier between your personal information and cybercriminals.

Sign up for a password management service
Another way to keep track of your passwords is to sign up for a password management service for your business. These services encrypt and store your passwords for you and even generate random new passwords when needed. Some are free and some come with a fee, it just depends on what works best for you.

Generally, these solutions require a single master password that allows each user to access their stored information. The best password management services integrate with your browser or mobile device. Using one of these services for your business can help you get all of your employees on the same page with password security.

Tip: Don’t save your passwords or other login information in your browser. Cybercriminals can easily extract that information if your computer is ever hacked, making a bad situation worse.

Security is the foundation of customer trust
The final piece is to make sure your whole team is following these best practices. Your business is only as secure as your weakest password, so make sure to distribute best practices and regularly remind team members to update and refresh their secured logins.

Once you have these nailed down, there are other next steps you can layer on to boost your protection. Consider biometric authentication methods, like fingerprint or facial recognition, whenever possible. Ensure that your team’s antivirus and antispyware software are up to date. These steps will ensure your most precious asset — the trust of your customers — remains protected.