Never Share Logins

Sharing a username and password may seem harmless. Someone needs access to an application, so an employee sends the credentials by email or chat. It takes 30 seconds, everyone gets what they need, and the problem appears solved.

Until something goes wrong.

For a small business, shared logins can create security risks, make employee offboarding harder, and leave you without the visibility you need to know who accessed what.

If your employees are sharing passwords, it’s time to take a closer look.

The Problems With Shared Logins

You Can’t Tell Who Did What

When five employees use the same account, the application can’t tell you which employee performed a particular action. If an important file is deleted, a setting is changed, confidential information is accessed, or something suspicious happens, you’re left trying to determine who was responsible.

Individual accounts provide accountability and a much clearer audit trail.

Former Employees May Still Have Access

When an employee leaves, their individual accounts can be disabled. With a shared account, you have to change the password—and then make sure everyone who still needs access receives the new one.

That often doesn’t happen immediately. Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all.

A former employee may still know the password months after leaving the company.

You Don’t Know Where the Password Has Gone

Has it been emailed? Texted? Saved in a browser? Written in a document? Stored in a spreadsheet?

Once a password has been shared, it’s difficult to know who has a copy or where that copy exists. Changing the password later helps, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem of uncontrolled access.

One Stolen Password Can Open the Door

Shared passwords are frequently reused, rarely changed, or made simple enough for multiple people to remember. If an employee falls victim to phishing or their device is compromised, the shared credential could provide an attacker with direct access to a business system.

MFA Becomes Harder to Use

Multi-factor authentication is an important layer of protection, but shared accounts can make it difficult to implement properly. If the authentication code goes to one person’s phone, everyone else has to depend on that person for approval.

That inconvenience can lead businesses to disable MFA or create workarounds that weaken security.

Attackers Can Hide in the Crowd

A shared account may already be used by multiple people from different devices and locations. That can make suspicious activity harder to identify because an attacker’s login may look like just another legitimate use of the account.

The Better Approach: Individual Access

Whenever possible, give every employee their own account.

Individual logins make it easier to:

• Know who accessed a system and when
• Enforce appropriate permissions
• Enable MFA
• Quickly disable access when someone leaves
• Manage access when employees change roles
• Investigate suspicious activity
• Reduce the impact of a compromised credential

And what about applications that only allow one shared account?

That’s where a business-grade password manager can help.

A password manager can allow authorized employees to access a shared application without giving them the actual password. Access can be granted or revoked centrally, credentials can be securely stored, and strong, unique passwords can be used without requiring employees to remember them.

Is Your Business Sharing Too Many Passwords?

Here’s a quick test:

Do you have accounts where multiple employees know the same password?

If so, you may have an access-control problem hiding in plain sight.

The good news is that fixing it doesn’t have to be complicated.

We can help identify shared accounts, eliminate unnecessary password sharing, improve MFA, and put a secure access-management process in place.

Don’t wait until an employee leaves, an account gets compromised, or you need to investigate an incident to discover that you don’t know who has access.

If you’re not sure how many shared logins your business has, that’s a good place to start. Contact us for help reviewing your current access and identifying the highest-priority risks.

Contact us today to learn more about how to best secure your IT environment with proper process control and advanced cybersecurity techniques.

Call us at 201-493-1414 for a consultation.