AOL Increases Security... But It Will Cost You
from the are-you-paranoid-and-have-a-lot-of-cash? dept
While it's good to see a company like AOL offering a two-factor authentication option for logging in, it might not set the greatest precedent that they're charging an extra $2/month for the service. There's also a $10 upfront fee, which could pay for the device from RSA that gives the user the random set of digits they need to log in (plenty of companies use these gadgets already). This raises the question: should better security be a premium option? Obviously, setting up such a system and maintaining it is a bit more costly, but what kind of message is being sent, when to be really secure in using a service you have to pay extra? Doesn't it just give the company more incentive to be weak on security for regular users to help upsell them to the premium option?
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Course you realize that if a person buys into this and somehow has their information compromised, they are going to sue the hell out of the ISP ... and probably win.
deep sigh.
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One question not answered; WHY?
But we use two-factor authentication to protect the "crown jewels", financial data and production-critical systems, stuff that would lead to multi-million dollar writeoffs if compromised.
I'm not entirely clear on what AOL is protecting here? This seems like a heck of a lot of time and effort just to cut back on their "phishing" problems.
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What?!
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