|
Article:
Open Sesame - Password Security by: Terrence F. Doheny 'Open Sesame!'¯ is probably the most famous password in literature. It gave Ali Baba access to vast treasure. In the realm of technology, computer passwords also give access to valuable treasures: precious business and personal data. Information about your personal life, buying habits, credit quality and life style is valuable to those who can profit from it. For the Corporation, information has even greater worth. It is not the 'Bricks and Mortar'¯ but the intangibles such as intellectual property, client lists, market strategies, pricing and compensation that account for over half the value of the modern enterprise. All of this personal and business data most likely resides on a database somewhere and is available with a password. In fact, passwords are the most common means of entry in any system. They are also acknowledged as the most vulnerable points for security. 'Weak'¯ or compromised passwords are the easiest way for hackers to gain entry into a system. Simple or short passwords can be easily discovered through 'brute force'¯ or 'dictionary'¯ attacks which concentrate intense computer power to crack a password. A two letter password, for example, has only 676 combinations. A password with eight letters offers more safety with '208
|
