Maskinongé
IT services in Maskinongé: who holds the keys to your business?
On a small team, the accounting software password travels between three people, the Wi-Fi one is taped under a keyboard, and the administrator account is everybody’s. It works, until the day someone leaves. OKTO Solutions helps put that access back in order from Trois-Rivières, about 36 km from Maskinongé.
In Maskinongé, OKTO Solutions offers SMBs a way to take back control of their access: one account per person, multi-factor authentication on every account, separate administrator accounts and an inventory of who can reach what. When an employee leaves, the account is blocked and sessions are revoked. The office is about 36 km away.
In Maskinongé, who sorts out passwords and shared access for a small business?
A small business in Maskinongé often runs on a handful of passwords everyone knows and on administrative rights nobody ever took back. Based in Trois-Rivières, about 36 km away, OKTO Solutions offers its services to SMBs in Maskinongé and starts from a plain question: who holds the keys? The inventory that follows covers active and orphaned accounts, administrative rights, shared accounts, the password policy and outside supplier access. Corrections come next: multi-factor authentication on user accounts and administrator accounts alike, administrator accounts kept apart from everyday ones, and named access that can be traced. When someone leaves, their account is blocked and their sessions are revoked on all their devices, with a written trail of what was closed. OKTO has no office in Maskinongé and no technician stationed there. In this sector, the on-site visit can take place the same day, depending on urgency.
Taking stock
Where are a small business’s keys?
Seldom where you think. They sit in three places, and an account inventory brings them out one at a time.
The password everyone knows
The front desk account, the business application login, the general mailbox. Three people type it every day, and nobody can say who did what.
The everyday administrator account
Administrative rights handed out once to help out, never taken back. Or an administrator account that doubles as a mailbox. One infected workstation then gives away the keys to the whole house.
One person’s memory
Critical access lives in somebody’s head, or with a former provider. As long as that person is around, all is well.
These three situations surface in the identity and access section of our cybersecurity audit for SMBs.
Theft
What happens when a password is stolen?
Quite often, it was not guessed. Its owner typed it into a fake Microsoft 365 sign-in page, after a well-crafted email. All the attacker has left to do is use it.
That is where the second factor changes the outcome. With multi-factor authentication, the password by itself opens nothing: the sign-in calls for an approval on the employee’s phone, and the employee declines. We put it on user accounts, on administrator accounts and on remote access, management included.
And if somebody did enter a password in the wrong place? The order of the steps is known: change the password and revoke open sessions, check the mailbox rules, read the sign-in history, then log the incident.
The rest comes down to reflex. Email remains the busiest way in, and no software replaces someone who gets suspicious at the right moment. The phishing simulations in the vCIO module are there to measure that reflex.
A stolen password, a sign-in from an unknown location: the request is denied on the employee’s phone, and the account stays protected.
The departure
Someone is leaving: which keys need to change?
Closing one account is not enough when the person also knew other people’s passwords. Here is the list, from most pressing to most often forgotten.
- Their own account. It is blocked, and sessions still open are revoked on each device. Otherwise the phone already signed in keeps receiving email.
- The shared passwords they knew. A common account cannot be taken away from one person only. Its password is changed for the whole team, or it is replaced with individual access.
- Their administrative rights. If they were the only one holding them, another account must take them over before the cut-off, not after.
- Access outside the office. Supplier portals, the phone system, social media accounts, remote access, folders shared with customers.
- Shared mailboxes. We check who can still open them, above all the ones kept “so nothing gets lost.”
- The trail. What was closed, when, and by whom.
The inventory
How do you find out who can reach what today?
By drawing up the list, account by account. On a small team nobody keeps one, because access was granted as requests came in: a right to help out, a share for a project, a guest for a supplier.
In Microsoft 365, the review counts the global administrators, notes who they are and checks whether a former provider is still among them. It also goes through shared mailboxes, guest accounts still active, sharing links with no expiry and accounts without a second factor. The classic finding: it is turned on nearly everywhere, except for management, accounting and the administrators.
A good share of the corrections happens right away, in the admin centre and with no interruption: remove a guest, close a link, cut the number of administrators. The rest becomes a planned project. For Microsoft 365, a partner works through delegated access, which can be revoked, never through a shared password.
Microsoft 365 audit A Microsoft 365 audit report: sharing links with no end date, guest accounts, accounts without two factors, then the order of corrections.
The ground
Maskinongé, about 36 km from our office
Maskinongé is a municipality in the regional county municipality of the same name, in Mauricie. Route 138 and Autoroute 40 cross its territory.
In our Mauricie table, Maskinongé sits on the same line as Louiseville: about 36 km, a visit within the day depending on urgency. For access, distance matters little: blocking an account or revoking sessions is done remotely, in a few minutes when the tools are already in place.
We have no premises in Maskinongé and no technician is stationed there. Multi-factor authentication is part of all three levels shown on the our packages page. Other municipalities in the region appear on the IT services in Mauricie page. The service areas page shows the full map. To go over your access, write to us through the contact page.
Questions and answers
Your questions about passwords and access in Maskinongé
Is one password shared by three employees a problem?
Who should hold the company’s administrator accounts?
Is changing a departing employee’s password enough?
Does multi-factor authentication solve the password problem?
Can you come to Maskinongé if an account is compromised?
Where do we start if nobody knows who has access to what?
Do you know who holds the keys at your office?
Tell us how many people work at your Maskinongé office and which accounts are shared. We tell you where to start and what can be corrected in a few minutes.
Reviewed by Antonio Pazzi, president of OKTO Solutions · updated