Published at InfoSecurity Magazine on December 27, 2018 by Raz Rafaeli
For years, we’ve been discussing the vulnerabilities of passwords and the need to ditch them for more robust and secure solutions. However as we leave 2018, we’ve still been hearing about data breaches that are related to poor password choices and authentication policies.
Earlier this year, we saw a surge in the use of SamSam, a breed of ransomware that exploits poor passwords to infect computers. Also an audit of the IT infrastructure of the Western Australian government found that the passwords of thousands of government employees could have been exposed to unwanted parties.
Recent research shows that the UN is also doing a poor job of protecting its passwords, and dark web markets are replete with username and passwords to most popular online services.
However, every cloud has a silver lining, and we’re finally seeing signs that the industry is moving in the right direction, toward a future where password breaches might become a thing of the past thanks to technological innovation, regulation and cooperation between large and small tech companies.
