What Is Password Rotation?

Password rotation is the practice of changing and resetting passwords at regular intervals to minimize security risks and unauthorized access to private information. There are two main types of password rotation: manual and automatic. Manual password rotation refers to the process of changing a password yourself, while automatic password rotation relies on a system to generate a new password and replace the old one. 

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), requiring users to rotate their passwords every 30, 60 or 90 days is discouraged unless your organization suffers a data breach. Your organization may enforce password rotations for privileged accounts to reduce security vulnerabilities, but you must still maintain strong password practices by ensuring updated passwords are unique. For personal accounts, you may not want to change your passwords as often because you may resort to using weaker passwords, which could lead to your accounts getting compromised.

Keep reading to learn why password rotation is important, how challenging manual password rotation can be and how to securely implement password rotation when necessary.

Why is password rotation important?

It is important to practice password rotation within your organization because frequently updating passwords can prevent unauthorized users from accessing sensitive information and limit how long a compromised password to a privileged account is exposed. However, you must ensure that your employees are changing their passwords to ones that are strong and unique, regardless of how frequent their passwords must be updated, to uphold security standards.

Helps prevent unauthorized access

Using the same password for a long time can make it easier for cybercriminals to crack the password and access sensitive information. Regularly changing passwords for accounts with sensitive data can help keep these accounts secure and prevent unauthorized access. Automating password rotation can make it easier for employees to keep their accounts safe without having to worry about creating newer and stronger passwords each time. This also helps prevent misuse of accounts by employees or insider threats. 

A Privileged Access Management (PAM) solution can further reduce the risk of insider threats by rotating the passwords of those with the most privileged access to sensitive data. Automated password rotation is especially useful if you have a former employee you are concerned about compromising your data; you can easily rotate your privileged accounts’ passwords and revoke access to anyone who no longer needs it using a PAM solution.

Limits exposure time

Imagine if one of your HR employees’ passwords became compromised. Knowing that they handle company payroll and other sensitive information, this raises concern about unauthorized users accessing such important data. However, if you regularly rotate the passwords of your privileged accounts, a compromised password will be available to an unauthorized individual only for a limited time. Password rotation limits how long a stolen password will work, so changing your privileged passwords often reduces how long it can be used to damage, alter or steal any sensitive data.

Minimizes chances of reusing passwords

When your organization automatically rotates passwords for privileged accounts, your employees no longer need to worry about creating a unique password every time they face a potential cyber threat. Regularly rotating privileged passwords through an automated system reduces the likelihood of employees using weak or reused passwords. If a privileged account has its password rotated every 60 days, an employee may grow frustrated if they cannot think of a random password every two months. This frustration typically leads to employees creating variations of the same password, which is a dangerous practice that can lead to brute force and credential stuffing attacks. With automated password rotation and a strong password management system like Keeper^®, employees no longer need to waste time wondering how they can create unique passwords and store them in a safe place.

The challenges of manual password rotation

Manually changing passwords regularly can lead to security vulnerabilities. Let’s say you have an employee with privileged access to sensitive data, and they need to change their password every 30 days. Even though password rotation has its benefits, enforcing manual password rotation can disrupt the productivity and efficiency of an employee with privileged access, as they will spend more time resetting their forgotten password because they must change it so often.

An employee’s original password may have been JohnSmith1!, so if they’re forced to change their password as frequently as once per month, they will want to make sure they can easily remember it. This employee might change their password to JohnSmith2! this month, JohnSmith3! the next, JohnSmith4! the following month and so forth. Even slightly changing the same password over and over is still considered reusing it, so enforcing manual password rotation policies will likely result in your employees creating weak passwords simply to remember them better. Once a cybercriminal realizes that this employee has used JohnSmith1! as a password for one account, they may try all variations and subsequent numbers to eventually compromise the privileged account. If a variation of that password is used for other accounts, the cybercriminal can compromise those as well.

How to securely implement password rotation

The best way to securely implement password rotation within your organization is by using a PAM solution like KeeperPAM®, which features automated password rotation. Your organization can benefit from utilizing an automated password rotation process because KeeperPAM will automatically generate strong, unique passwords for your privileged accounts and store them in an encrypted location. Using a PAM solution to automatically rotate your privileged passwords will simplify the process of updating passwords, reduce the risk of unauthorized users accessing your organization’s private information and enhance the overall security of your sensitive data. When you use KeeperPAM, your privileged passwords will be automatically rotated on any schedule you choose and can be securely shared with necessary employees based on the principle of least privilege. 

Automate password rotations with KeeperPAM

Password rotation is an important part of protecting your organization’s most valuable data. By automating the process of rotating passwords, employees with privileged access to sensitive data will not need to waste time and productivity creating unique passwords. KeeperPAM will help your organization achieve full visibility, security and control over all privileged accounts, ensuring that your most sensitive data remains protected.

Request a demo of KeeperPAM today to explore the various ways your organization can prevent unauthorized access to privileged accounts.