Yesterday as i was surfing as usual i encountered this statement by Merritt Maxim, “Passwords are like the cockroaches of the internet, They really despite all of our best efforts, are really hard to kill off and companies have been trying to do it for years“
And so i thought why not make a post about this. So hey friends, hope you are all doing well! Let’s dive into this.
Now myself, i have to keep 288 passwords for what i think is 288 accounts. Part of these accounts are my business accounts. Others are accounts for my family members which i help manage. And yea i know what you are thinking, that’s a lot of passwords but i tell you this, count how many passwords you have, unless you use the same password everywhere, of which that’s a practice i will strongly warn you against(Hackers find that password they will try it everywhere and that’s how all your accounts will be compromised).
But yea, passwords have become a serious issue, let’s not forget it takes less than a minutes to crack 8 character passwords. Go check out my post for making stronger passwords: How to Make “Uncrackable” Passwords
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So Big Tech has been trying to finally kill this cockroach and even now it proves difficult but we may have ourselves progress!
Check out this video by CNBC. Please be sure to subscribe, they deliver quality content. You can also check out my other post on Big Tech: Why Big Tech Wants A Piece of Finance
. Key Take Away Below The Video.
Key Takes
- Passwords are a serious risk, because they require many things to be safe and it’s been known that human minds are not good at remembering.
- Passwords and Users are the weakest links when it comes to security and privacy.
- Millions of companies have been compromised because of bad/common passwords!
- The average human being has to remember/store at least 20 passwords and user names.
- It takes less than a minute to crack an 8 multi character password eg P@55w0rd.
- The first computer to have passwords IRONICALLY was the first one to be hacked!
- There are sites where anyone can “google” compromised/cracked passwords eg weleakinfo.com which was recently shutdown by The FBI and there are more.
- For now make sure to enable Two/Three Factor Authentication(2/3FA) in any platform or website you have. You can link it to your phone and more.
- Try FIDO
! - Try YubiKey
- My Advice? Use 27 Character Passwords/
Passphrases
! It’s a lot but can make a difference - Use Biometrics!
- Use a secondary device as a password!
- We might be looking at a passwordless or passwordlite future thanks to Big Tech(GAFAM).
- The problem with passwords, is that they are universal, they can be used anywhere and by anyone.
Key Issues
- No more sharing Netflix and other subscription packages.???
- This notion hasn’t caught on or received wide adoption
- We are already seeing issues with biometrics eg someone can just threaten and force you to unlock your phone or computer using FaceID, Fingerprint or Voice Recognition
- More data to Big Tech could become a potential issue, See my previous post: Why Big Tech Wants A Piece of Finance
. They want Medical and Financial Data now Biometric? - Hackers could hack the servers containing login info giving them access to everything
Video Timestamps
- 0:42
– The Problem with Password - 4:47
– How Did We Get There - 6:11
– Types of Authentication - 8:02
– The FIDO Alliance - 9:41
– A Passwordless Future - 14:49
– Challenge
I hope you learned something here today. I made sure to summarize in order to help you guys.
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Thank you guys! Have a great one!
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