Many law firms and businesses put off creating and using a standardized workstation image. Instead, they use whatever operating system comes pre-configured on the computers they purchase. Sometimes they will install a clean operating system and configure each machine from scratch for each newly purchased computer. This is a mistake which can be both expensive and dangerous. Thankfully, your computer environment can be made more secure, and your IT costs can be reduced, by implementing a standard workstation image.

Let’s talk about passwords.

Most people’s idea of a good password is one which is easy to remember, and which meets the absolute minimum requirements of their business systems and IT policy. Over the years, between constant reminders from the information technology community and constant news reports about major security breaches, we have all begrudgingly accepted that our passwords need to be a little longer, a little more complex and a little more inconvenient for us to use.

The technology used by cybercriminals to crack passwords is always improving, however, and even a 52-character password made up of obscure words and phrases, such as “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn1.” can be brute-force cracked in an ever-shrinking amount of time.