Have you taken the #LayerUP pledge? It’s an ingenious way to get people’s attention on a topic that might be considered frivolous, but which could result in some rather costly consequences if not followed – and that topic is Password Compliance. In enterprises, getting all of the employees to adopt password best practices on a consistent basis can be very difficult – especially since its human nature to use repetitive patterns or familiar phrases as passwords. Why? Because password requirements are everywhere, and the demand from IT departments to make them lengthier and more complex continue to grow and well, let’s be honest, the more passwords you have, the more likely you are to forget them.
Weak Passwords
We have been using passwords since the 1960’s, where the origins of the internet date back to. Yet with the passing years our passwords have become weaker, and easier for cyber criminals to hack. Don’t think so? Does your password have a vowel? Does it contain the numbers 1 or 2 that are placed at the end? How about a capital letter at the beginning followed by a vowel?
Waging the War on Passwords
We have seen large password hacks recently including: LinkedIn, eHarmony, and Yahoo. Hacks so large some in the industry call this the Password Wars. Unfortunately for the general public—we are losing. However, before the trumpets play, let’s give them a fight. Our feature blogger Darren Leroux has touched on this subject before and inspired me to really take a look at innovations that may change the way you secure your information.
What’s your P@ssw0rd?
I know I’m a little late to the party, but recently I’ve been giving more and more thought to the passwords I use to access the various sites and tools I use on a day to day basis. The main reason I started thinking about this is because of Google’s introduction of the 2-step verification process and a recent article in Wired in which Google has declared ‘war’ on the Password.