Every company should be concerned about cybersecurity, now more than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many businesses to provide work from home (WFH) options for employees. These arrangements foster social distancing — which is good — but also provide new opportunities for hackers to access valuable company data and proprietary information, as well as private customer details — which is decidedly not good.
Companies have a wide range of options to country email list choose from for becoming more secure, such as regularly updating applications, creating strong backup processes, using VPNs and encrypted messaging, and having custom software created by a nearshore development team. Another option is to reconsider the use of passwords.
Passwords are still heavily in use but are gradually becoming less prevalent as authentication methods that are newer, more convenient, and more secure emerge. At the very least, most systems that use passwords also require one or more additional authentication factors such as a unique, one-time-use passcode or a “magic link” instead of the standard credentials. Here we explore why passwords are on their way out and what new technologies are replacing them.
Passwords Don’t Provide Enough Security
Security specialist Exabeam writes, “For the role of communication in project management as little as $500, cybercriminals can buy a database of stolen credentials and target multiple websites to gain access, knowing that some users reuse passwords.” In this way, as stated by the World Economic Forum, “In terms of cybersecurity, weak password management is central to the entire criminal ecosystem.”
According to technology expert Eric Elliot, even hashing passwords (a method for disguising stored passwords) isn’t enough. While many companies recover from these events, others don’t.
Passwords Are Hard to Work With
As you go through your daily life, how many passwords do you have to keep track of for personal and work-related sites? If it’s any more than a handful, you know what a chore it is to try and remember them. Sticky notes and spreadsheets do more harm than good, as they give potential hackers an easy way to capture credentials.
Now experts are recommending more complex qatar data passwords and having a unique one for each site you must log into, making password management even more difficult. Even those who use a password manager may make the mistake of sharing passwords with others who may lose or share them or, worse, giving them to a hacker claiming to be an IT technician (a method known as social engineering).
Companies that expect employees to take on the responsibility of creating and managing passwords are risking security given these inherent challenges. That’s why, according to Exabeam, “Backed by heavyweights, including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, eliminating passwords is gaining momentum.”