Fingerprints, access keys and facial recognition are putting a new squeeze on passwords as the traditional computer security method — but also running into public hesitancy.
“The password era is ending,” two senior figures at Microsoft wrote in a July blog post.
The tech giant has been building “more secure” alternatives to log in for years — and has since May been offering them by default to new users.
Photo: AFP
Many other online services — such as artificial intelligence giant OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot — require steps like entering a numerical code emailed to a user’s known address before granting access to potentially sensitive data.
“Passwords are often weak and people re-use them” across different online services, said Benoit Grunemwald, a cybersecurity expert with Eset.
Sophisticated attackers can crack a word of eight characters or fewer within minutes or even seconds, he pointed out.
And passwords are often the prize booty in data leaks from online platforms, in cases where “they are improperly stored by the people supposed to protect them and keep them safe,” Grunemwald said.
One massive database of around 16 billion login credentials amassed from hacked files was discovered in June by researchers from media outlet Cybernews.
The pressure on passwords has tech giants rushing to find safter alternatives.
TRICKY SWITCHOVER
One group, the Fast Identity Online Alliance (FIDO) brings together heavyweights including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and TikTok.
The companies have been working on creating and popularizing password-free login methods, especially promoting the use of so-called access keys.
These use a separate device like a smartphone to authorize logins, relying on a pin code or biometric input such as a fingerprint reader or face recognition instead of a password.
Troy Hunt, whose Web site Have I Been Pwned allows people to check whether their login details have been leaked online, says the new systems have big advantages.
“With passkeys, you cannot accidentally give your passkey to a phishing site” — a page that mimics the appearance of a provider such as an employer or bank to dupe people into entering their login details — he said.
But the Australian cybersecurity expert recalled that the last rites have been read for passwords many times before.
“Ten years ago we had the same question... the reality is that we have more passwords now than we ever did before,” Hunt said.
Although many large platforms are stepping up login security, large numbers of sites still use simple usernames and passwords as credentials.
The transition to an unfamiliar system can also be confusing for users.
Passkeys have to be set up on a device before they can be used to log in.
Restoring them if a PIN code is forgotten or trusted smartphone lost or stolen is also more complicated than a familiar password reset procedure.
“The thing that passwords have going for them, and the reason that we still have them, is that everybody knows how to use them,” Hunt said.
Ultimately the human factor will remain at the heart of computer security, Eset’s Grunemwald said.
“People will have to take good care of security on their smartphone and devices, because they’ll be the things most targeted” in future, he warned.
Towering high above Taiwan’s capital city at 508 meters, Taipei 101 dominates the skyline. The earthquake-proof skyscraper of steel and glass has captured the imagination of professional rock climber Alex Honnold for more than a decade. Tomorrow morning, he will climb it in his signature free solo style — without ropes or protective equipment. And Netflix will broadcast it — live. The event’s announcement has drawn both excitement and trepidation, as well as some concerns over the ethical implications of attempting such a high-risk endeavor on live broadcast. Many have questioned Honnold’s desire to continues his free-solo climbs now that he’s a
As Taiwan’s second most populous city, Taichung looms large in the electoral map. Taiwanese political commentators describe it — along with neighboring Changhua County — as Taiwan’s “swing states” (搖擺州), which is a curious direct borrowing from American election terminology. In the early post-Martial Law era, Taichung was referred to as a “desert of democracy” because while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was winning elections in the north and south, Taichung remained staunchly loyal to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That changed over time, but in both Changhua and Taichung, the DPP still suffers from a “one-term curse,” with the
Lines between cop and criminal get murky in Joe Carnahan’s The Rip, a crime thriller set across one foggy Miami night, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Damon and Affleck, of course, are so closely associated with Boston — most recently they produced the 2024 heist movie The Instigators there — that a detour to South Florida puts them, a little awkwardly, in an entirely different movie landscape. This is Miami Vice territory or Elmore Leonard Land, not Southie or The Town. In The Rip, they play Miami narcotics officers who come upon a cartel stash house that Lt. Dane Dumars (Damon)
Jan. 26 to Feb. 1 Nearly 90 years after it was last recorded, the Basay language was taught in a classroom for the first time in September last year. Over the following three months, students learned its sounds along with the customs and folktales of the Ketagalan people, who once spoke it across northern Taiwan. Although each Ketagalan settlement had its own language, Basay functioned as a common trade language. By the late 19th century, it had largely fallen out of daily use as speakers shifted to Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), surviving only in fragments remembered by the elderly. In
RSS