World Password Day 2018: Lets Make It the Last One

Every year, the IT and security world marks World Password Day, but why do we? Heres why this years should be the last one ever.

I had a mind-numbing experience earlier this month. It started right before 7 a.m.
It was May 3, also known as World Password Day. What insane person came up with this holiday? Its not really about celebrating passwords, but reminding us to improve them or implement two-factor authentication. Isnt there a better way? Personally, Id like passwords to be roadkill on the technology highway and my recent experience with them illustrates why.
Heres what happened.
Ive been doing branding projects on and off for years under a company called Blue Sky Branding. Along with my website, I have an email account -- one I check infrequently, as its not an active business. But that morning I thought, Ill log in. At the very least Id delete the spam.
I navigated over to webmail and, surprise, surprise, it didnt recognize my password.
(Source:
Geralt via Pixabay
)
So, I try again and again, using all my usual passwords.
My password hygiene is pretty bad. Yes, I know the risks, but I cant possibly remember separate passwords for all of my online accounts, numbering in excess of 70, between work, personal, banking, investment, and social media. While I use a password manager to give me a hand, it frequently fails to log me in, as was the case with Blue Sky Branding. Its for that reason that I dont allow the password manager to pick ridiculously complicated login strings.
Instead it remembers all the variations of the passwords I use for my multiple accounts.
But back to the issue at hand. I couldnt login to my account. So I headed over to reset the password.
First, they want to know my mothers maiden name (very secure!). Then the name of my favorite pet. Now, Ive had a few pets over the years and Im never certain of my favorite. Is it my current lab, my first cat? Damned if I can remember.
Happily, I managed to jump this hoop.
Now the hard part began. I tried over and over to reset my password, but each time it failed to accept it. I finally had to look at the rules, listed below:
Must be at least 12 characters
Must contain at least three of the following: An uppercase character, a lowercase character, a number (0-9), and a special character (!@#$%^&*)
Must not be the same as your current password
Must not include any portion of your email address
Should not contain any personal information
Im not sure this is humanly possible.
How can I remember a unique password that is 12 characters in length with all those conditions? The only way to remember it is: write it down, and thus the madness continues. Writing
all
my passwords down in my notes app on my computer is not safe or secure.
But whats the alternative? Our brains are not wired to remember this many characters for all the discrete accounts we have.
Think about telephone numbers. They are only ten digits long, and there was a time when I was a kid that they were only seven (no need to use the local area code). I bet most of you can remember your childhood phone number and even those of your closest friends. Our brain can handle a seven-number string, but it’s much harder with 12, especially if they include numbers, special characters, capital letters, and on and on.
After 15 minutes I tired of this experience. I couldnt reset my password, and I have no idea why. So, recalling that morning I say, kill the password.
A good friend of mine told me she wants her passwords implanted in her brain so that she never has to think about them. But we dont have to go that far. We can simply get rid of them and use our biometrics instead. I do this for my bank account, why cant I do it for every other account?
Instead of passwords killing our productivity lets agree on World Password Day to kill them. Next year, I hope well all be celebrating World Biometrics Day.
Ill happily be its poster child.
Oh, did I mention, I cant log into my Dropbox account, or my Lifetime Fitness account, either? Sigh.
Related posts:
UNC Researchers Pitch Framework to Fight Password Reuse
Microsofts 4-Step Plan for Eliminating Passwords
Researcher Finds etcd Servers Leak Passwords Like a Sieve
Fortnite Players Lob Shots at Epic Games Over Hacked Accounts
—
Lori Cohen is the CMO of
Veridium
has launched dozens of brands over the past decade, including Mobiquity, Tesora, Gazelle and LimoLiner.
.

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World Password Day 2018: Lets Make It the Last One