Rumors of Password Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
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McAfee recently revealed that 72 different organizations around the world have been victims of cyber-spying. With attacks likely to increase, it is important to note that strengthening your access controls ensures that you have a higher level of security for all those who are attempting to access the network.
However, PKI is not the panacea that some hope it would be, and the death of passwords is greatly exaggerated. From a security perspective PKI is without a doubt the best, but when it comes to high cost of ownership, time consuming implementations and specialized support staff here as well PKI wins.
Passwords are free and very easy to control, but the weakness is not in passwords but rather how people choose them, manage them and types them. Almost every breach that involved passwords was not because of passwords but because of the password used by the individual. It is no wonder that accounts and companies are getting hacked through passwords especially when IT keeps making password security more burdensome on the user. Employees are being forced to write them down, come up with easy ones to remember and use the same ones everywhere. If security is cumbersome, employees will always circumvent it for their own convenience. That is a fact.
So that is why my company incorporated high security technology (smartcards, multi-factor authentication and encryption) with existing infrastructures (password security, existing ID badges), password management (secure, unique passwords for every account) and user convenience (two mouse clicks and nothing for the user to type, remember or know.) Without doing a product pitch, the take away is that passwords can be both secure and affordable means of security. With our advanced 8-Levels of Assurances Power LogOn delivers Authentication, Authorization, and Non-Repudiation.
I don’t believe that any single technology is superior to another, but rather it’s matching the best technology based on the constraints and problems that need to be addressed. Using a Ferrari to haul sheets of plywood doesn’t make much sense either.
So no, passwords are not dead, but the old ways of using them should be.
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About the Author
Dovell Bonnett has been creating security solutions for computer users for over 20 years. In order to provide these solutions to consumers as directly, and quickly, as possible, he founded Access Smart. With each of his innovations, the end user — the person sitting in front of a computer — is his No. 1 customer.
This passion, as he puts it, to “empower people to manage digital information in the digital age” also led him to write the popular Online Identity Theft Protection for Dummies. Within the pervasive nature of our e-commerce and e-business community, personal information, from credit card numbers to your pet’s name, is more easily accessed, and identity theft and fraud has become an issue that touches every consumer.
Mr. Bonnett’s solutions reduce security risks for individual users, small businesses and large corporations. His professional experience spans 21 years in engineering, product development, sales and marketing, with more than 15 years focused specifically on smartcard technology, systems and applications. Mr. Bonnett has spent most of his smartcard career translating and integrating technology components into end-user solutions designed to solve business security needs and incorporating multi-applications onto a single credential using both contactless and contact smartcards. He has held positions at National Semiconductor, Siemens (Infineon), Certicom, Motorola and HID. He is the author of smartcard articles, regularly presents at conferences, and helps companies successfully implement smartcard projects. Mr. Bonnett has been an active member of the Smart Card Alliance contributing to the development of physical access security white papers. He holds dual bachelor’s degrees in industrial and electrical engineering from San Jose State University.
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