Password Protection

Vulnerabilities

Issued by: Security Intelligence

The Inconvenient Truth About Your Eight-Character Password

October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), which means it’s time to talk about passwords for the umpteenth time. Why beat this dead horse again? Because just about everyone still uses passwords, and even the most recent password security recommendations do not make them any stronger. This year, the recommendation was eight characters —…

Malware & Threats

Issued by: Security Week

GitHub Exposed Passwords of Some Users

GitHub has instructed some users to reset their passwords after a bug caused internal logs to record passwords in plain text. Several users posted screenshots on Twitter of the security-related email they received from GitHub on Tuesday. The company told impacted customers that the incident was discovered during a regular audit. GitHub claims only a “small number”…

Network Security

Issued by: Security Intelligence

Young People May Shun Passwords, But That Doesn’t Mean They’re Less Identity-Conscious

Pity the poor password. Maligned for years, it’s nevertheless still hanging on as the dominant form of access and identity protection for online accounts of all types. Despite years of industrywide efforts to educate users about the importance of employing difficult-to-guess passwords, the list of the most frequently used passwords has changed little. One analysis of 10…

Network Security

Issued by: Security Intelligence

In Case of Emergency, Break Glass: Protecting User Credentials in the Event of a Data Breach

There have been countless cyberbreaches over the past few years in which personal data, such as user IDs and passwords, have been compromised. These range from attacks against government agencies, such as two recent incidents affecting the national identity systems in Spain and Estonia, to corporate breaches exposing data belonging to millions of customers. In…