Don’t Let Passwords Leave You Exposed

It would seem that password security can leave you exposed in more ways than one, if the latest story on ITSecurityGuru and the national media is to be believed. The story suggests that a piece of software that guesses passwords for the ‘Find my iPhone’ feature is to blame for nude photos of the Oscar winning actress, Jennifer Lawrence, hitting the Internet and social media this week.

The story is a stark reminder that if you do not want to people to see your personal pictures and private information then the best thing to do is not put it online in the first place! But, if you are going to do it then make sure that the password you choose is as ‘strong’ as possible (it is understood that the hack used the most common Apple passwords). The advice of using a mix of upper and lowercase, letters and numbers, doesn’t just apply to iCloud, but also to Dropbox, Facebook, Gmail, in fact any online multitude of resources that we all regularly use. 

However, strong password is a bit of a misnomer as in truth no password is really very strong, and this latest story lays bare how inadequate password security continues to be in safeguarding the way in which we protect the data we choose to store and share online. iCloud is just one of a long line of stories that highlight the frailty of passwords and I am sure it won’t be the last.

So, my question to every organisation that uses passwords is simply – Why?

We as users of these services need to be mindful of how we use them, but in my view those who provide them have a duty-of care to do their very best to provide adequate protection, and passwords are clearly not up to the task.

To find out more about passwords, how people use them and the problems it is causing take a look at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YshA42jh5kg

Steven Hope, CEO of Winfrasoft