Last updated date : 13 Mar 2024
What is password rotation?
Password rotation refers to the security practice of changing or resetting passwords and other privileged credentials to prevent unauthorized access to critical personal and business information. Typically, an organization's password policy mandates password resets every 30, 60, or 90 days.
Why is password rotation necessary?
Generally, password rotation or password management is taken up to protect an organization from data breaches and other forms of privilege abuse. Passwords are the low-hanging fruit of an organization's IT network and thus are cybercriminals' favorite targets to exploit.
While regular password rotation does not necessarily guarantee that your passwords are 100% secure from breaches, it does make them exponentially more difficult to access. We believe that password rotation can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches.
The efficacy of password rotation can be seen throughout multiple events in history, starting with World War II when Nazi Germany made it immensely difficult for the Allies to crack the Enigma code simply because the decryption key was rotated every single day.
How often should you perform password rotation?
As stated before, organizations commonly perform password rotation every 30, 60, or 90 days. However, several cybersecurity experts and organizations like NIST suggest more flexible, yet similar, approaches.
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User-friendly password resets
A common suggestion is to extend the password rotation interval so that users get accustomed to using their passwords. This idea stems from the fact that if users are required to perform password resets on a frequent basis, they are prone to hard-coding the passwords in Excel sheets or notepads or even writing them down in order to remember them.
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Emphasizing difficulty over frequency
While experts agree that it is always good to rotate passwords regularly, they strongly suggest creating difficult passwords rather than rotating through multiple weak passwords. They also believe that frequent password changes can lead users to create weaker passwords to make remembering them easier. This can be overcome using password generators.
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Training and awareness
Awareness and training programs should be conducted for employees and other users of an organization's business assets. This is done to prevent human error that goes against organizational IT security policies.
Risks associated with manual password rotation
The lack of password security awareness among the general public and the desire for password efficiency have somewhat blurred the consequences of manual password rotation. This has even led to people viewing passwords as an inconvenience, not a security practice for their own privacy. Most opt for convenience over security if allowed to rotate their passwords manually.
More often than not, users use and manually reset to simple passwords with repetitive patterns that are easy to remember so that they can quickly log in to their banking or shopping app, which has all their critical information, from account details to home addresses and even social security numbers.
The risk of unauthorized access to such information grows even further in the case of enterprises. An enterprise typically deals with one hundred times more passwords than an individual does, and at that point, manual password rotation is not only a security hazard but also impossible.
In the simplest of enterprise IT environments, an administrator might store and rotate passwords and other credentials using an Excel sheet. Remote users would access this Excel sheet, which is stored in a local system, then manually log in to their associated accounts and systems. However, this is not a scalable practice. Moreover, manual password rotation proves impossible for other types of privileged identities, such as hard-coded credentials and other machine identities.
With the increasing number of passwords requiring constant rotation, there is a growing likelihood that users will occasionally struggle to remember their passwords, leading to the risk of being locked out of various systems. In response to this, users often resort to using the same repetitive password across multiple accounts (encompassing both professional and personal domains), opting for easily guessable passwords, or even noting down their passwords on physical paper or within digital files such as notepads or spreadsheets.
A notable security hazard in this scenario lies in the fact that malicious actors can establish connections between compromised passwords, email addresses, and usernames to potentially compromise other services that employ the same password. When a single set of credentials is used across a server, application, switch, and social media account, a breach in one jeopardizes the security of all the other associated accounts.
Password rotation best practices
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Focus on password strength
Password strength is the cornerstone on which the entire concept of password rotation rests. Passwords with a complex combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special symbols are generally considered strong. Strong passwords do not contain dictionary terms, phrases present in the username, predictable patterns, or even account details such as the date of birth or employee ID.
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Automate password rotation
Given the loopholes and redundancies in manual password rotation, businesses that deal with a high number of privileged identities automate their password rotation schedules. A password rotation schedule ensures not only mandatory password resets but also that employees and the enterprise as a whole adhere to IT compliance guidelines. However, it is important to note that password rotation schedules should not run at frequent intervals in order to prevent human error, as discussed above.
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Deploy a password manager
Using a password manager, IT administrators can store all the enterprise's privileged identities in a centrally accessible password vault. By doing so, they can securely share access to remote machines with other users on a case-by-case basis, without revealing the passwords of such machines. A password manager can also help with generating strong passwords for privileged users and endpoints and setting up password rotation schedules, which are triggered automatically by the password manager itself without human intervention.
Password rotation with ManageEngine Password Manager Pro
ManageEngine Password Manager Pro is an enterprise password manager designed to store and organize shared sensitive information, such as passwords, documents, and digital identities, within enterprises. It fortifies enterprise assets, ensuring their security when accessed from different networks, geographical locations, and remote endpoints. Using Password Manger Pro can help your enterprise enhance its overall security posture and resilience against cyberthreats over the long term.
