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50 most-used passwords exposed
LeBlanc pointed out that dependence on passwords has become too complex since people are required to come up with “unique combinations consisting of uppercase and lowercase letters, a number and a symbol in the eight-character sequence”. Furthermore, the more accounts you have, the more passwords you will need. This inevitably leads to people creating passwords that are easier to recall. “As long as passwords remain the standard method for identifying your users on the web, people will still continue to use ‘letmein’ or ‘password123’ for their secure log-in, and will continue to be shocked when their accounts become compromised,” he said. While there are other methods that can be used to increase login security, such as fingerprints, used by Apple for its iPhones, these can lead to false negative results, where valid users can’t log in, and false positives, where invalid users can log in. LeBlanc suggested that the answer lied in being able to use brain implants, heartbeat monitors and vein recognition. PayPal has recently outlined a range of biometric solutions that could potentially replace the password. For starters, what about ingestible authentication devices, which worked on batteries, that would be powered by stomach acid? It would be able to detect glucose levels and other internal features. Read more about passwords:- For British business, is the password a past word?
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A PayPal spokesperson said: “We have no plans to develop injectable or edible verification systems. It’s clear that passwords as we know them will evolve and we aim to be at the forefront of those developments. We were a founding member of the FIDO alliance, and the first to implement fingerprint payments with Samsung. New PayPal-driven innovations such as one touch payments make it even easier to remove the friction from shopping. We’re always innovating to make life easier and payments safer for our customers no matter what device or operating system they are using.”
Security company Kaspersky announced in February 2015 that it had partnered up with BioNyfikento to research the potential for smart implants. “The technology is already happening,” said Hannes Sjoblad, co-founder of BioNyfiken. “We are seeing a fast-growing community of people experimenting with chip implants, which allow users to quickly and easily perform a variety of everyday tasks, such as allowing access to buildings, unlocking personal devices without PIN codes and enabling read access to various types of stored data.” In fact, Intel research claimed that by 2020, users would be able to browse computer documents and surf the internet through he power of their mind. This would be made possible via sensors implanted in people’s brains. As more applications emerge, we could well see implantable chips and edible technology becoming more common. But Leblanc stressed that several of these technologies still have a long way to go, which may be good given that they may not yet be deemed socially acceptable. By Shané SchutteShare this story