Abstract
We can’t go much further in this book without discussing passwords. I hate passwords. I hate them with a passion. And I know I’m not alone. But despite some promising new technology, I’m here to tell you that password-based authentication is still your most secure option for proving your identity today, if you use them correctly. By the time you finish this chapter, you’ll understand why.
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Notes
- 1.
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- 3.
You can keep track of support for passkeys on your devices and major websites here: https://passkeys.dev/
- 4.
This is from an annual report from SplashData (https://www.splashdata.com). Note that this is the list of all hacked passwords… that is, of all the passwords the bad guys were able to guess, these are the most popular.
- 5.
Special thanks to Steve Gibson’s excellent website for these figures: https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm
- 6.
If you want a truly unique and fun way to “roll” your dice, check out the official Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons challenge coin! https://d20key.com/#/coin
- 7.
Security people sometimes cheekily refer to these as “something you forget, something you lose, or something you cease to be.”
- 8.
SIM = subscriber identity module. It’s what ties your account to your phone number and the smartphone itself.
- 9.
Most people attribute this to a 2004 policy written for the National Institute of Standards and Technology by a guy named Bill Burr. He got it from a whitepaper from the 1980s! He’s since apologized for this, and NIST has removed this from their security recommendations.
- 10.
If you’re interested in this level of privacy, I will have some recommendations at the end of the book.
- 11.
For some really stupid reason, we have not settled on a simple login standard for websites. And apparently, one common issue with Bitwarden is that it doesn’t always recognize when you’re logging into a website for the first time. In those cases, you can explicitly add your website credentials using the plugin menu on your browser.
- 12.
This is a Harry Potter reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_objects_in_Harry_Potter#Horcruxes
- 13.
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© 2023 Carey Parker
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Parker, C. (2023). Who Goes There?. In: Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9036-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9036-1_5
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