http://www.rbj.net/article.asp?aID=184758 By Roger Dube Rochester Business Journal August 6, 2010 We've all read the news items: Someone's identity is stolen, bank accounts emptied and credit cards used to make thousands of dollars' worth of phony purchases. Individuals no longer are the prime targets of such attacks, however. The Wall Street Journal has reported that a growing number of small businesses are losing large sums of money through attacks on their online banking accounts. A recent IT security report indicated that losses of small businesses to such attacks this year will exceed $3.8 billion. Gaining access to accounts and information requires the attacker to somehow get past the defenses erected around the target-a computer or network of computers. In the final analysis, encryption algorithms protect these systems. These encryption algorithms must be unlocked by the use of proper credentials. Different systems require different credentials, but the simplest ones (and likely the majority of them) use passwords. Properly constructed passwords employ at least two lower-case characters, two upper-case characters, two numbers that are not at the beginning or end of the password and two special characters. These often are difficult to remember, and users today are required not only to use several of these complex passwords but to change them frequently to protect against theft. Unfortunately, people are not designed to be able to memorize long sequences of random characters. As a result, people usually create passwords they can remember easily-and these passwords become the weakest link in a computer's security system. Attackers know this, and they always attack the weakest link. [...] -- Visit InfoSec News! http://www.infosecnews.org/Received on Sun Aug 08 2010 - 22:29:34 PDT
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