Desktop Management and Password Management

In the modern day world that is so heavily dependent on computers the growth of any business is directly proportional to the strength of the IT infrastructure. With the growing importance of desktops in companies, it has become very important to have proper desktop management. Not only that, to make sure that data remains secure, efficient password management has also become essential. Here is a detailed look at both these facets of IT infrastructure.

Desktop management

Purchasing systems, providing them to users, and making sure that they run smoothly and efficiently is a very big challenge. It is important to make sure that the system downtime remains low and that issues are sorted out as quickly as possible. Some of the most common issues related to desktop management are:

• Ensuring that the inventories remain up to date for audits

• Allocating the assets

• Managing various patches, upgrades and deployments

• Managing against security attacks and hacks

When you go for a desktop management solution you must ensure that it offers certain key features. You should be able to discover any asset like a workstation, router, printer or any other device that has been allocated an IP address. It should also allow you to manage desktops and configure them from a remote location.

Password management

The importance of passwords cannot be stressed enough. If you use too weak a password then you risk loss of valuable data, identity theft and various other situations that you would not want to face. Passwords are classified as weak or strong depending upon the characters used. Weak passwords are usually simple names that can be found in a dictionary or refer to your family members. Strong passwords are usually those that have numerals alphabets, special characters and both upper and lower case letters. It is very difficult to break a strong password.

The problem with weak passwords is quite simple, anybody can hack your account through brute force attacks if you use them. The problem with strong passwords is that, they are quite complex and when you start using too many of them you will find it difficult to keep track of them. Many people start writing down the password, which nullifies the entire point of having one. Here are some tips that will help you in managing your passwords.

• You should categorize the systems you use based on the amount of risk involved. Accounts on newspaper sites and online forums, can have easy to remember passwords. No data theft can be involved in such situations, and the maximum that an attacker can do is to impersonate you.

• Never use public workstations for making payments through your credit cards as software might be installed to copy the details you type in.

• Always make sure that the website you are typing in your data is secure. A small lock icon in the browser is an indication of a secure site.

• Make sure that you do not send credit card information or other data through an email service that has not been encrypted.

By alpha