As our reading make quite clear there are problems with the use of passwords for
ID: 3755121 • Letter: A
Question
As our reading make quite clear there are problems with the use of passwords for security. A long enough password to be truly hard to use (I once had a 16 digit random generated password. Anyone think I could remember it?). Passwords short enough to be usable (typically 8-11 digest) are not very strong. For this question do not consider badges, tokens or biometrics).
Discussion question:
What can we do to make passwords a stronger authentication mechanism. (Consider length, complexity, character sets, challenge response etc --- anything but cards, tokens and biometrics).
Explanation / Answer
As mentioned, large passwords with randomly generated characters are difficult to remember. As rightly said by Bruce Schneier, a renowned security technologist, one of the best ways to choose a secure password is to take the first letter of each word of a rare sentence, preferably something made-up than something found in a book, then add some variation, such as substitution with non-alphanumeric characters. Me personally, I use a similar method with a little variation. I use a 4 word sentence, capitilizing certain key characters in these words, and using numbers and symbols as replacement for certain characters, and the variation that I add is that for every different website, who's password I create, I use something from that wesite's name and add it to my password. This way each website that I sign up for has a unique password, all the while being easy to remember as I can quickly derive the addition to my standard password from the website's name. For example, when I sign up for a Yahoo! mail account I may use a password like Frodo@LOTRYH#4, for the email address bilbo.baggins@yahoo.com. This password becomes easy to remember as it is related to the email address name, and YH tells me it is a Yahoo! password and #4 indicates that it's my 4th Yahoo! account. Similarly I would use a password like Sauron@LOTRYH#5 for another Yahoo! account gandalfkitchen@yahoo.com. For a Proton Mail account with a similar name like bilbo.baggins@protonmail.com, I would use a password like Frodo@LOTRPM#2, where PM would indicate a Proton Mail account. Similarly, one can come up with many such creative ways to create a secure password which uses characters, numbers and symbols from a larger domain, while being easy to remember.
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