The human factor behind compromised passwords

This article was originally posted on www.renaissance.ie.

A lot has been written on passwords and their role in keeping our networks and data safe and secure, with malware infections spreading more rapidly than ever (it is estimated that 1 in 4 people will fall victim to a data breach by 2020 – “Naked Security”) In the immortal words of Alexander Pope “To err is human” and that has never been more accurate when it comes to compromised security credentials. As humans we like to keep things simple, for example, we tend to keep passwords succinct due to an inability to remember long and complex words or numbers, we even write them down. Furthermore, we like our credentials to be pretty much the same or at least the same format across a variety of devices, and applications and accounts.

Two of the most common ways in which credentials can be compromised…

1.  Credentials are unlawfully hacked – In this specific case, the hacker gains the freedom to navigate remotely around the network with full privileges. There are a number of ways to combat this; firstly, the password must be… Read more.