The demise of passwords
“Hackers are on the loose! Protect your data!”
Unless you’ve been living under rocks for more than a few decades, these are some familiar exclamations. Gone were the days when gold, platinum, and oil were the most valuable commodity. Now, the most valuable commodity anyone can have is data. With an increased number of security breaches, the importance of protecting your data from threats and vulnerabilities has never been greater. Passwords were our first line of defense for more than forty years, and everything was fine until a decade ago. Don’t believe me? Just have a peek into Pastebin and take some time browsing into the username + password combo. Trust me. It’s that bad. And with brute force cyberattacks on the rise, we can say it hasn’t been a great year for cybersecurity so far.
Why are passwords becoming less secure?
When you have several online accounts, it's a universal truth that it’s easier to use the same password for all the accounts than to create separate passwords.
The Statistics of SecureAuth say that 81% of people use the same password for multiple, if not all of their online accounts. This means that the password they used for online banking is also used for their Facebook account. Therefore, when your Facebook account gets compromised, so does your bank account. Simply put, though it is incredibly easy to reuse a password for multiple accounts, the risk that comes with reusing a password makes it not worth it.
I understand nobody can remember all the passwords that are set up. That leaves people with two choices. Either you maintain a cheat sheet with a list of all the passwords, which is tiresome, or come up with new ways for authentication, which does not compromise the user experience for improved security.
Does it mean an apocalypse for passwords?
To paraphrase Mark Twain: “The rumors of the death of passwords have been greatly exaggerated."
At the RSA Security conference, Bill Gates predicted the demise of passwords as he claimed they could not “meet the challenge” of keeping critical data secure. Though this was over a decade ago, the prediction now holds true. IT professionals now believe that the passwords won’t survive this decade and recently taken surveys back this up.
In the surveys taken by Wakefield Research and SecureAuth, IT practitioners believe that 69% of organizations will do away with passwords in 5 years. And 80% of IT decision-makers vote that they’ll give up on passwords in the same time frame. And the interesting fact is that 93% say they are currently using authenticating measures beyond passwords
.Have the increased number of password-related security breaches led to anxious users?
Yes. 8 out of 10 professionals are concerned about stolen credentials. Will the prediction of Mr. Gates hold true this time, and would the year 2025 sound the death knell for passwords?
Only time can tell.