What Makes a Strong Password Policy for Growing Businesses?

The Real Risks of Weak Passwords

Weak passwords are a liability. Reused logins, pet names, predictable patterns like Password123!: these are the digital equivalent of leaving your office unlocked overnight with a sign that says “free laptops.” No, we're not exaggerating, they really are that useless.

And once attackers get in, they can install backdoors, move laterally across your systems, scrape customer data, access bank info, or drop ransomware. For many small businesses, the consequences are often terminal. In fact, 60% of SMBs close within six months of a cyberattack.

What Actually Makes a Password "Strong"?

You probably know the basics of passwords: length, complexity, and unpredictability. But what most people fail to understand is that what makes a password strong isn’t just how complicated it looks to a human, but how well it stands up to automation.

Not sure if you're aware of this, but most hackers don’t guess passwords manually: they run cracking tools and credential stuffing attacks with massive leaked datasets. A long, random string like C9$e4!vPqXw7@Jq takes centuries to brute force. But something like “Spring2024!”? That’s done in seconds, despite looking “strong” at a glance.

So, ultimately, the robustness of a password comes down to entropy, meaning the randomness of the characters and length combined. You should aim for at least twelve characters, but going for sixteen or more is even better.

Not to worry, you don't have to come up with long and strong passwords on your own—that's what password generators are for. Tools like random password generator help automate and simplify this process: you set the parameters, and it gives you passwords with high entropy that won’t collapse under automated attack.

How to Build a Solid Password Policy

If your company doesn't have a defined password policy, what you're doing is you’re leaving it up to individual habits, and that’s never a good security strategy. A well-structured password policy should include these core components:

Minimum Length & Complexity

As mentioned, it's best to require at least 12 characters. Include uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and special characters. Keep in mind that substitutions (like replacing “a” with “@”) don't work because modern cracking tools factor that in.

Prohibit Reuse

Importantly, you want to stop users from recycling old passwords. Make it technically impossible to reuse the last 5–10 passwords.

Random Password Generation Tools

Don’t rely on people to invent passwords from scratch because they’ll choose what’s easy to remember, which usually means it’s easy to guess. To ensure randomness, promote or require the use of tools like password generators.

Mandatory MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication)

If you want to up your security, MFA shouldn't be optional. At a minimum, use app-based authenticators like Authy or Google Authenticator. SMS-based MFA is better than nothing but bear in mind it's more vulnerable to SIM swapping.

Password Managers

Strong passwords don’t help if users store them in browser autofill or sticky notes. What you want instead is to encourage company-wide use of password managers (Bitwarden, 1Password, or even built-in enterprise options like Okta or JumpCloud).

Automated Expiry With a Caveat

There’s a change in industry thinking here. Frequent forced resets actually lead users to worse behavior, like predictable modifications (Password1!, Password2!, and so on). Instead, focus on password longevity unless there's been a suspected compromise. Then reset and reissue using secure tools.

Training Matters More Than You Think

Tools are of great help, but even the best ones won’t do much if people don’t use them properly. That includes your most seasoned employees. You need to make security awareness part of your onboarding and quarterly training cycle. Build it into your processes like you would expense policies or HR compliance.

Also, since phishing is alive and well, unfortunately, make sure you set up phishing simulations. Walk through how credential stuffing works, and explain why credential reuse across services (like Salesforce and Asana or your CRM and bank) is a risk multiplier.

And no, don’t just dump them in a generic webinar. Keep things relevant. If someone clicks a phishing link in a simulation, give immediate feedback. Make the stakes real without turning it into a blame game.

If You're Scaling, Tighten the Screws

As your business grows, so does your attack surface. You onboard vendors, outsource IT, add new roles, implement integrations, and every new login is another potential leak point.

That’s where tools like Buildd’s startup infrastructure platform can help indirectly. When you centralize and streamline operations and infrastructure decisions—especially for internal apps or product workflows—you create fewer unmanaged login sprawl scenarios. And that makes enforcing a consistent password policy much more realistic.

You should also implement user provisioning and deprovisioning workflows. The second someone leaves, shuts off their laptop, or changes roles, their credentials and app access should auto-expire. Manual offboarding leaves gaps every single time.

Future-Proofing Your Policy

Since cyber threats constantly evolve, your policy has to keep up. That doesn’t mean chasing every trend in the security sector, but building flexibility and monitoring into your process. Here’s how to do that without turning security into a full-time job:

• Conduct annual audits. Review logs, password hygiene metrics, and MFA enforcement.

• Integrate with IAM systems. Identity and Access Management tools let you define role-based access, rotate credentials, and enforce 2FA consistently.

• Set breach alert monitoring. Subscribe to services like Have I Been Pwned or use enterprise tools that alert you if a company email or domain appears in a credential leak.

And maybe most importantly, treat passwords like any other risk factor. Don’t set it and forget it. Instead, assign someone ownership, include password compliance in quarterly KPIs, and make sure the policy evolves with your business.