Password Security Is Her Game - California State University, Long Beach (05/06) Vol. 58, No. 5,Manly, Richard
Password security is not going anywhere, even though it may not be the most secure form of protection, according to Kim-Phuong Vu of the Psychology Department of California State University, Long Beach. Vu, a human factors expert who specializes in proactive password protection, wants to make passwords more secure and memorable. The editor of the handbook "Human Factors in Web Design" last year, Vu says many people have about six passwords, about half never write them down and have to reset their passwords because they have forgotten them, and she adds that it is not difficult to crack the average password. In fact, she has conducted research that shows 60 percent of passwords can be cracked within a few hours and some can be determined in less time. People tend to choose something that is easy to remember for their passwords, which makes them easy to crack. A password that is easy to figure out puts bank accounts, grades, Web sites, and more at risk, but people have generally embraced password security, which is affordable. Voice recognition is still not ready, and high-fidelity systems are expensive, as are fingerprint and retina scans, which the typical computer user also finds unsettling. Vu says a combination of higher or lower case letters, numbers, and special characters would make for proactive password protection, and suggests that users would have to spend more time committing passwords to memory. Click Here to View Full Article
