Most UK office workers are willing to give away their computer passwords in exchange for a pen – in fact, even more people (nine out of 10) were willing to comply this year than when a survey was first carried out in 2002.
Security consultants may gnash their teeth and say that even more must be done to educate staff to protect passwords and/or stop using their own names or dates of birth as passwords.
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Point missed
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But biometrics firm Digital Persona (www.Digitalpersona.com) says that this is missing the point – if companies were not so reliant on passwords to protect their IT systems, this problem would disappear. Digital Persona’s fingerprint authentication technology enables users to access company resources without having to memorise cumbersome passwords, according to the firm. With biometrics technology readily available, the firm says it seems almost archaic that passwords are still the dominant method of user identification.
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Authentication launch
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On April, 28 Digital Persona announced the integration of its fingerprint-based authentication technology with Microsoft Windows Server 2003. According to the firm this is the first time that Microsoft has endorsed and integrated biometric-based authentication technology into its operating system, and paves the way for mass-market deployment and acceptance of security by fingerprint. Could this spell the end for passwords? the firm asks.
