Dark Reading Radio: When Will Passwords Finally Die?

Passwords get guessed, hacked, stolen, and abused, every day. But they’re still alive and well.

The long-maligned yet still-widely deployed method of user authentication--the password--remains in use in most organizations, despite a string of new technologies aimed at killing it. A recent tally of 2015 reported data breach incidents around the world found user credentials the main victim of bad hackers, with half of all incidents exposing passwords and email addresses.

Passwords are not only crackable in many cases, but they’re also sitting ducks in organizations that don’t hash or protect them from attackers. It’s not that no one has tried to come up with a way to replace or augment passwords: there’s multi-factor authentication, biometrics, password managers, and the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Alliance, etc., for example. But most organizations still use passwords as their primary method of authenticating users or visitors on their websites.  

I’ve personally been awaiting the password-killer app for a decade now, after diligently managing dozens and dozens of strong passwords for different accounts and sites. I’m still waiting.

So join me this Wednesday, March 16, at 1pm EDT/10am PDT, for the next episode of Dark Reading Radio where we’ll explore whether we’re stuck with passwords forever or not -- and why. My guests will be authentication experts Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO Alliance, and Corey Nachreiner, chief technology officer at WatchGuard Technologies, who will discuss why past technology developments have failed, and what the future holds for authentication and the pesky password.

Register here for the live show and online chat for the episode, “When Will Passwords Finally Die?” Um--and yes, to participate in the chat, you have to create a user account with a password (!) for the Dark Reading site community. So please join us on the show to rant and brainstorm about passwords.

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