[pchelpers] Article:Weak passwords leave firms open to hackers

Majority of passwords are very easy to crack
Iain Thomson at Infosec, vnunet.com 25 Apr 2006

Poor password policy management is leaving firms open to hacking 
attacks, a survey published today at Infosec Europe 2006 has warned.

Nearly two thirds of the 500 IT administrators who responded to the poll 
considered the passwords of their users to be inadequate, either using 
common dictionary words, names or other weak passwords.

Overall 86 per cent of users used one password for all their sites or a 
very limited pool of passwords. Over 40 per cent fall into the former 
category.

"It is madness to use the same password for your banking site as for 
your football supporters' page," said Graham Cluley, senior technology 
correspondent at Sophos, which carried out the survey.

"If someone is using key-logging software they could get complete access 
to all your confidential information. Mistakes like this can be very 
costly."

A weak password is defined as one that uses either dictionary words, 
which can easily be broken using a software-led brute force attack, or 
recognizable names.

A strong password uses a mixture of upper and lower case letters, 
numbers and punctuation characters.

Sourced from:
http://www.pcmag.co.uk/vnunet/news/2154725/weak-passwords-leave-firms-open

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