A recent survey by IT security company
SafeNet reveals that IT security is still very weak in a majority of
businesses. The survey covered over 60,000 global businesses and showed that
most were struggling to convince users of the importance of security.
The main security loopholes relate to the
use of passwords to access computer systems. The survey revealed that 50% of
users write their passwords down and 33% actually share them!
Many companies had introduced policies
relating to best practice when using passwords – increasing the minimum
password length, and requiring more frequent changing of passwords. However,
this inevitably exacerbates the situation, since many users claim to have
difficulty remembering more complicated and increased number of passwords
required in their daily business activities. This inevitably results in them
committing them to paper!
One tip for handling the need to frequently
change your password(s) is to use a combination of alpha and numeric characters,
and to change one digit in the password at a time. Unfortunately, until more
robust biometric access systems are produced, this could be an ongoing problem
for most of us!
