For more than 45 years, I've worked with, advised and consulted with the FBI and hundreds of financial institutions, corporations and government agencies around the world to help them in their fight against fraud.
But my expertise began more than 50 years ago, in an unusual way: I was>We need to get rid of passwords
We think our passwords keep us safe, but that's just a fantasy. They don't protect us from hackers or maintain the privacy of our>Biggest password mistakes people make today
Chertoff is right, and I agree that the next step is to rid ourselves of passwords. In the meantime, there are ways to prevent your account information from getting stolen.
Below are some of the biggest password mistakes people make, and you should avoid them at all costs:
1. Changing them too often. Frequent password changes are counterproductive, as people tend to swap out>The cost of doing nothing
Over the years, I've learned that change — even change — takes time. But it also takes willpower.
I dread thinking about what will happen if the industry doesn't heed the call to move away from passwords. We must act now. When cyber-criminals breach a database with usernames and passwords, they are after something: the identity of the user.
With the identity and the credentials to accounts, they get something that is "fenceable" on the dark web. They can convert these identities to cash or cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Once an identity has been sold, the money is used mostly for illicit purposes. These funds are used in additional crimes — far worse than stealing money.
Let's not allow the bad guys to win. As the great parliamentarian Edmund Burke is believed to have said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
