Articles Tagged with ''password management''

The Internet of Things is an unavoidable part of network topology today, but the connectivity of devices – not just laptops but medical equipment, printers and surveillance cameras – leaves enterprises open for cyber attacks.

The FIDO Alliance has released a public draft of new security standards that could someday make user passwords obsolete, Forbes reports. The FIDO Alliance, a security-minded industry consortium that includes Google, Netflix and PayPal, is drawing the support of major tech companies looking for login alternatives with greater security, which easing the authentication burden on consumers, who must create and manage passwords and credentials for the numerous sites they visit.

As the number of cyber attacks increase, the cost, frequency and time to resolve them increases as well. Conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by HP Enterprise Security Products, the 2013 Cost of Cyber Crime Study found that the average annualized cost of cybercrime incurred by a benchmark sample of U.S. organizations was $11.56 million, representing a 78-percent increase since the initial study was conducted four years ago.

Perdue University researchers are working on technology that could enable users to replace passwords with iris or fingerprint scans, The Associated Press reports.

The researchers are testing emerging biometric technologies for weaknesses in the basement lab of Perdue University’s International Center for Biometrics Research. Iris and fingerprint scans, as well as facial and voice recognition, are just a few of the tools that could eliminate the need to frequently change passwords.

 How many passwords do you have? The average consumer has 35. The problem when you get that number is remembering them, duplicating them or losing them. That’s where the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance comes in. 

The partnership seeks to overcome the major weakness of password-authentication to send data over the cloud, which is stopping many sensitive organizations from using the service.