What’s the Password?

Recently I reached a new level of friendship with someone I’ve only known for a few months. She told me the password to her wifi. It’s saved in my phone, and even if we have a falling out unless I delete her saved wifi data my phone will still remember it.

When it comes to password’s for churches’ wifi, social media, websites, and the like we need to give some time to thinking not just about what passwords should be but also who should know them. The less secure a password is, the more likely it is that someone can get in and manipulate your web presence or steal data. Plus, people’s devices will remember passwords like my phone does with my new friend’s.

This is a serious topic, but it’s not something to stress out about. A few precautions will go a long way.

Basic Password Precautions

• Use capital letters, small letters, numbers, and special characters
• Don’t use the abbreviation for your church in the password (Example: if you’re First Methodist Church don’t start your password with FMC)
• Don’t use phone numbers, birthdates of theologians, or any variation of Jesus’ name within your password
• Don’t post passwords around the church
• Don’t save passwords in a Word document
• Change passwords regularly (every 6 months)

Wireless Internet Passwords

• Have an open guest wifi account for visitors and church members
• Password protect a wifi account for staff/key volunteers/tech people (especially if they’re live streaming the service)

Social Media

• All the passwords for your social media sites need to be different
• Only 3 people need social media passwords–the person in charge of that social media account, the pastor, and one administrator within the church

Website

• At the very least you need 2 log-ons: 1st for people who post and update the website, 2nd for an admin to access the site
• If you have multiple people updating the website separate log-ons for each will not only help security, it will help track who is doing what

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