Keeping An Eye On The Barbarians At The Gate

We talk a lot about password security here and why it is important to use strong passwords and how to update and manage them, but sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. To that end, check out this log report designed to record attempted login hack attempts:

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click for the full list…

ADAPTISTRATION-GUY-117This report includes more than 3000 records detailing nearly 10,000 failed attempts over a period of a few weeks at InsideTheArts.com and from a comparative perspective, this is child’s play. These are just garden variety brute force attempts but you can see from this insanely long list just how many fracking barbarians out there want to hack your organization’s website.

At the risk of sounding like an alarmist, this isn’t going to get any better any time soon; instead, it is the new normal so do yourself a favor and make sure you take password security seriously because once they get in, you also become an even bigger magnet for future attacks.

Fortunately, you can brush aside this nonsense by making sure all of your website admins maintain strong passwords and less than obvious usernames (i.e. no admin users with the username “admin”). Here are a pair of articles that walk you through understanding what goes into a strong password and pointing you toward tools that help whittle down those alphanumeric mountains into manageable mole hills.

[ilink url=”https://adaptistration.com/blog/2013/01/25/eliminate-password-fail-time-suck-once-and-for-all/”]Password management made easy.[/ilink]

[ilink url=”https://adaptistration.com/blog/2012/06/04/change-your-password-already/”]How to create a strong password.[/ilink]

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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