August 11, 2008

Passwords are Broken; Two Factor Authentication Schemes Should be Standard

Link: Digital Domain - Goodbye, Passwords. You Aren’t a Good Defense. - NYTimes.com.

The principal problem (unfortunately not identified in the article) is that most people use the same password for multiple sites. A worker who has access to the computer logs at one site, can then employ that person's email and password on other more valuable sites--such as Amazon.com or a bank.

The difficulty is that we have to convince Amazon and the banks to move towards a more secure authentication protocol.

More companies should adopt two-factor authentication for their employees' remote access to email or VPN.

Posted by Anupam Chander on August 11, 2008 at 07:52 PM in Digitization | Permalink