In my previous post I shared ideas around the management of cloud-based systems such as Google Suite for Education (GSFE) and Microsoft’s Office 365. Building on from that post I have two important subjects I regularly get asked about around security:
- Passwords
- What to do when people leave a school
Passwords
The Verizon 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report, states that 63% of confirmed data breaches involved weak, default, or stolen passwords.
A password security strategy should increase security with little impact on staff through highly secure useable practices. Here are some recommendations to consider:
- 2-factor authentication to better prove your identity
- single sign on for services that allow it
- a password manager to manage different passwords for different accounts
- long phrases as a password, as length is more important than complexity
When people leave the school
When an account is deleted, anything created on that account such as emails, files, folders, and calendars will also be deleted. An important consideration is: what content needs to be retained by your school, what needs to be downloaded or transferred to that person, and what should be archived.
In GSFE, accounts can be suspended rather than deleted. This means that the shared content is still accessible to others, but the user themselves cannot log on to access it. Ownership of their files can be transferred to another account such as a generic ‘past users’ account, or to a particular person.
In Office 365, the user’s ability to sign in can be blocked by the administrator. Their OneDrive files must be copied to another location.
Another option to consider is to rename the user who is leaving to ‘deleted_$Name’, change the password, and disable email for that account.
If you have any questions around cloud management or generic technology tips and tricks, the invitation is always open. Leave a comment below and I will be in contact.
Image credit
Feature image is a combination of images:
Clouds image from Unsplash
Lock image: Everaldo Coelho and YellowIcon; [LGPL], via Wikimedia Commons