How password is important for our e-safety

by chemingui

Joined Apr 2019
Published Books 18

Password definition

A password is a string of characters used to verify the identity of a user during the authentication process. Passwords are typically used in conjuncture with a username; they are designed to be known only to the user and allow that user to gain access to a device, application or website. Passwords can vary in length and can contain letters, numbers and special characters. Other terms that can be used interchangeably are passphrase for when the password uses more than one word, and passcode and passkey for when the password uses only numbers instead of a mix of characters, such as a personal identification number.

https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/password

History of password usage

The use of passwords in computing dates back to 1961 when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology introduced the Compatible Time-Sharing System or CTSS. The CTSS was one of the first time-sharing operating systems and had a LOGIN command that required a user password.

In the 1970’s Robert Morris, the cryptographer who famously created the Robert Morris worm, built a system for storing hashed passwords as a part of UNIX operating systems. This early form of encryption translated passwords into numeric values.

Since then, the password as a security measure has been on decline. In 2004, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates declared that the password was dead at several technology conferences including RSA Security in February 2004 and IT Forum in Copenhagen, Denmark later that year.

Today, many enterprises are looking to reduce their reliance on passwords and/or completely eliminate them; organizations such as the FIDO Alliance have developed technology standards that replace conventional passwords with alternative authentication techniques.

Strong password

A strong password is one that is designed to be hard for a person or program to discover. Because the purpose of a password is to ensure that only authorized users can access resources, a password that is easy to guess is a security risk. Essential components of a strong password include sufficient length and a mix of character types. A typical weak password is short and consists solely of letters in a single case.

When people create passwords, they often defeat the purpose by choosing parts of their names, the names of their pets, or even the word “password,” itself, which was the most commonly used password for many years. Now that many password policies require the inclusion of a numeral, the most common password is “password1.”

You can make your password much harder to break by using more characters, mixing upper and lower case letters, and including numbers and special characters. According to a security guide from Texas A&M University’s Research Foundation, a six-character, single-case password has 308 million possible combinations, all of which a password cracker can go through in just a few minutes. Combining upper and lower case letters and using eight characters instead of six increases the possible combinations to 53 trillion; substituting a number for one of the letters yields 218 trillion possibilities; and substituting a special character or punctuation for another yields 6,095 trillion possible combinations. Although a password cracker can eventually go through that many combinations, it requires much more time and computing power.

People like to use passwords that will be easy for them to remember. A Microsoft article about security suggests that you use a memorable phrase instead of a word, and convert that phrase to a password. For example, the phrase, “I have 2 Labrador retrievers! Fido and Spot.” could be expressed as Ih2Lr!F+S.

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