Ah, passwords, the mish mash of letters, numbers, CAPITALISED and lower case, and you must have at least one symbol, that we all love to hate. Like really LOVE to H@t3 (password must be at least 8 characters long, please try again).
But think of a world without passwords for a minute. Yep, that’s right, it just wouldn’t work all that well.
The reason for the pervasiveness of passwords is simple, just like the reason for why spammers keep sending that annoying junk mail. It works. And there is no realistic and affordable replacement. There is nothing quite so easy (yes, we feel your pain on this one) or universal as the good old username and password combo. That’s particularly so in a world where cloud services, mobile computing and social media all require identification to work for you.
Despite their pervasiveness and utility, passwords still have inherent weaknesses – but you can mitigate those to improve your user experience by managing to create effective passwords which are not overly complex and time consuming. Check out these useful tips and tools to improve your password game.
Doing so is well worth it, not only for personal convenience and the safeguarding of your activities online. Companies are under increasing pressure from regulators to improve security, and particularly security access technology. A slightly broader perspective then, requires that organisations such as yours should look for options which help boost the ‘username and password’ combo, while still retaining its inherent simplicity and universality.
Consider solutions such as biometrics to augment the password; two-factor authentication, which typically leverages smartphones, is another suitable option which is relatively easily implemented and which also pairs well with the password.
But probably the clearest advice is that doing nothing when it comes to the ability to safely and consistently access the services required to function well in the modern world, is probably not a good idea. By consciously focusing on username and password challenges, you can improve the performance of this everyday task for personal benefit, and the benefit of your business.
