Easy Enable Password Configuration on Cisco Routers & Switches

Easy Enable Password Configuration on Cisco Routers 

The “enable password” and “enable secret passwords set password that’s used to enter privileged mode. You can use this to restrict people from changing your router or switch’s configurations, if they have connected to your device. You can set the enable passwords from global configuration mode like this:

Router(config)#enable ?
password                   Assign the privileged level password
secret                         Assign the privileged level secret

The following points describe the enable password parameters:
Password Sets the enable password on older, pre-10.3 systems, and isn’t ever used if an enable secret is set.
Secret Is the newer, encrypted password that overrides the enable password if it’s set. Use this method in your real-world configs, instead of “enable password” method.
Here’s an example of setting the enable passwords:

Router(config)#enable secret your-password
Router(config)#enable password your secret password

If you try to set the enable secret and enable passwords the same, the router will give you a nice, polite warning to change the second password. If you don’t have older legacy routers, don’t even bother to use the enable password.