DailyDirt: Breaking Bad... Passwords

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Passwords are everywhere. They get us access to our phones, computers, email, social media accounts, cloud storage accounts, banks accounts... just about everything important (and unimportant -- which is part of the problem with passwords). You might think you're clever by choosing a 4-digit PIN that doesn't look like a birthday date or year, but if you're using 2580 and think you're smart, think again.

• The iPhone's 4-digit passcode can be broken by brute force in roughly 111 hours or less. Sure, you could use your fingerprint, but it might be better to just turn off the "simple passcode" default and use more digits. [url]
• Plenty of password alternative schemes are springing up to move people away from passwords and towards other kinds of authentication. All the big tech companies are trying out various password alternatives. Google is experimenting with a dongle/token/USB key approach. Yahoo is trying out a password-free login. Passwords still seem to be the dominant method for logins, but that could change... someday. [url]
• If you have an old wireless router and it only uses WEP passwords, should you use it? Well, even if you use a WPA password, it only takes a few hours to crack... so just stay paranoid. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: dongle, fingerprint, logins, passcode, password-free, passwords, pin, security, tokens
Companies: google, yahoo