What are the key Change Default Password best practices?

Why default passwords are a deployment risk, not a housekeeping task

default password are dangerous because they are predictable, widely documented, and often shared across a product line or lab image. If one is left in place, the system may be reachable with credentials an outsider can guess without special access. That makes password replacement part of secure onboarding, not a post-install cleanup step.

Changing the password before the system enters service matters because default credentials create a narrow but high-impact exposure window during imaging, staging, handoff, and first boot. CISA Secure by Design reflects the same principle: products should not ship or launch with credentials that users are expected to replace later.

What good password replacement looks like in practice

A defensible process treats every default credential as a unique item to be replaced, not as a global setting to be changed once. Use a strong password for each account, avoid reuse across devices or environments, and make sure the change is recorded so someone can prove the default was removed and the new owner knows it exists.

Where the product permits it, disable or rename the default account so the attack path is no longer obvious. In the same control step, verify that the new credentials actually authenticate and that administrative access still works for the intended operator. That verification prevents the common failure mode where a password is changed but the system is left inaccessible or still partially exposed through another built-in account.

For device and embedded deployments, the identity of the device itself should be part of the plan. NHIMG’s Device and IoT Identity Guide ties default password bans to secure onboarding and lifecycle trust, which is useful when the product is expected to run unattended after deployment.

How to confirm no factory defaults remain after deployment

The immediate post-deployment check should not stop at the primary administrator account. Scan for other factory defaults, including secondary admins, test accounts, service interfaces, and any management endpoint that ships with a known password or shared token. A clean deployment means there is no leftover credential path that still behaves like a vendor preset.

That follow-up scan is especially important when devices expose APIs or management consoles. NHIMG’s API Key Management Guide is relevant here because the same lifecycle discipline applies to any credential that can open an administrative surface, even when the credential is not a human password.

If the system supports inventory or configuration checks, use them to confirm the credential state after rollout rather than relying on installer notes alone. That is the difference between a policy that says passwords were changed and evidence that the default path is actually gone.

Practitioner Guidance

What to verify: Confirm that the default credential was changed before the system was exposed to users, the new password is unique to that account, and the original factory login no longer works. If the platform allows it, verify both interactive access and any API or remote-management path that may still accept the old preset.

Common mistake: Teams often change the headline administrator password and stop there. That leaves secondary defaults, test accounts, or embedded management credentials untouched, which is how a “secured” deployment remains quietly reachable.

Practitioner takeaway: Treat default-password removal as a launch criterion, not a remediation task, because the real control is proving that no vendor preset remains usable after go-live.

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