04 May World password day

How many times have you had to enter a password today? May 4th marks World Password Day – but is it time to rethink this security feature? Morey Haber, Chief Security Officer at BeyondTrust considers passwords’ role in modern society.

Today, the most common storage medium for a password is the human brain. We assign a password to a system or application, recall it when it needs to be used. The more diligent of us, update our password when we decide the time has come to change it.

However, more often than not, we can forget these passwords, feel the need to share them, or are forced to record them with documents or pieces of paper.

These insecure methods for sharing passwords have caused the press to report front-page news articles on data breaches and compelled organisations to educate employees on the insecure methods for password storage and sharing.

A better method to document passwords is needed that is highly secure, documents distributed access, and promotes sharing and collaboration with minimal risk — no matter where the access occurs.

This is, of course, assuming passwords don’t become a thing of the past, when biometrics and the next wave of technology take centre stage.

People cannot be expected to remember every password needed, nor is it safe to reuse these passwords across different sites.

Now, there is an entire marketplace that involves the cracking and trading of individuals’ personal data.

With our new ‘work from anywhere’ world, and the fast paced technology that individuals such as threat actors have access too, we must regularly take action to secure our passwords and our accounts and be aware of the threats that are out there.