The dental industry is rapidly adopting new technologies to optimize operations, increase efficiencies, and enhance outputs. Notably, with the emergence of computers, most dentists have 
abandoned the traditional methods, such as storing records on paper, and adopted practice management software to run their businesses.
However, this increased reliance on modern technologies has made dental practices susceptible to cyber security attacks. And, the most vulnerable point in the security of any dental management software is password. If an attacker can crack, retrieve, or guess a password, then it can negatively impact a practice’s finances, patients’ confidence, and reputation.
Therefore, it’s critical that dental practices maintain a vigilant and proactive password management policy to safeguard their data.
Here are three useful tips to assist you in maintaining a secure dental practice.
Creating strong passwords is essential to ensuring the security of your dental software. If you have unbreakable, unique, and creative passwords, cyber criminals can have a hard time trying to access your stored data.
Importantly, you should stay away from the most commonly used passwords. If your password is too common, someone can easily guess and wreak havoc to your practice. For example, you should desist using passwords like “password,” “123456,” “qwerty,” “baseball,” “dental,” and “abc123.”
To be unique in your passwords, avoid using easily predictable words and phrases, such as dictionary words, names of drugs, names of pets, and names of places. You can use a creative mix of lower case letters, upper case letters, symbols, and numbers to make passwords difficult to guess. For example, a password like “uZo4pgr$lp0%r4Jk” can make your dental practice management software impenetrable.
Furthermore, the length of the password is key. The longer the password, the more solidified it becomes in safeguarding your dental practice data. For the security of your data, it’s recommended to create passwords of at least 8 characters long.
The success of your dental practice depends on how well you manage your patients’ data. Therefore, to avoid exposing the sensitive information to fraudsters, you should change passwords frequently, such as every 3 to 6 months. More so, in case you discover some unauthorized activity in your dental management software, such as attempted login from a strange location, you should change your password immediately.
Consistently changing passwords can limit constant breakage attempts and prevent the use of saved passwords. Since an attacker can try to break your password multiple times over a period of time, creating new passwords regularly can reduce the risk of their success.
If you switch computers with other colleagues, lose computers, or discard old computers without wiping your saved data, someone can get a hold of your passwords and access your dental software. Creating new passwords periodically implies that even if someone finds your old password, it will not be of any use to them.
Whenever you change your passwords, remember to store them securely. For example, you can store them in a secure offline place, use a highly encrypted online tool, or memorize them.
Computer based storage of patients’ data is a convenient and cost-effective way of managing the operations of a dental practice. To ensure the security of the data, it’s important to avoid the risky practice of regurgitating your passwords across multiple platforms—just for the sake of remembering them easily. Sharing the same password with multiple accounts increases the risk of unauthorized access to your dental software, if the password is hacked.
For example, if you use the same password for your social media accounts, email accounts, and dental practice management software, a malicious hacker can retrieve that one password and make multiple breaches, including collecting your sensitive dental practice data.
Therefore, to enhance the security of your practice data, you should use only specific and individualized passwords.
Conclusion
Having a robust password management policy is integral to protecting your dental practice data. Presently, data breaches are a real threat to dentists, especially since most practitioners have digitized their practices.
As such, dental practices are obliged to institute sufficient security measures and prevent the occurrence of a digital breakdown, which can greatly affect their operations.
Fortunately, your peace of mind and the security of your data are prioritized in the design of the tab32 cloud-based dental management software. The software has extensive features to guarantee the safety of your passwords and avoid unauthorized external intrusion. It also provides an intuitive user interface for securely managing your practice’s data.
With tab32, you’ll ensure that your dental office has ample IT solutions and strategic cyber security procedures to ward off threats and maintain the confidentiality of patients’ data.
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