Book Inspired Post I - Password Security

Most of the password security issues Mr. Stoll ran across are still relevant today. Hackers can still use flaws in the OS to steal password files. Once the file is acquired a couple of computers can still crack it in a reasonable amount of time. In fact some Computer Security classes have password cracking labs.

Imperva recently released an analysis of 32 million stolen passwords from Rockyou.com and found that at least half the passwords could be easily cracked using brute force or dictionary attacks. It appears that there is only one solution to this problem - alert managers who keep their systems patched and who use password checking programs to force users to choose secure passwords.