I love my new job. I thought that would be a good way to start this entry because today there’s something I didn’t like at work. I had to change my password.
For those who don’t work in a business environment user names and passwords are critical for accessing data and communicating with co-workers. My work computers won’t work without the proper username/password combo.
At this company your password must be changed every 90 days. Simple so far. It must contain upper and lower case letters plus a number or two. Punctuations are encouraged, but I haven’t crossed that line yet.
Once I changed my password it was necessary to update all the devices I use, like my cellphones and a handful of PCs.
Correct me if I’m wrong. The vast majority of us use one or two or a handful of passwords for the myriad sites that require one. I’m in the half dozen range.
That’s already tough enough to remember. Now I’ve got a password that’s specifically designed to be difficult to remember and which must be changed regularly!
I would buy into all this if password hacking was a big deal. It’s not. I’m not saying passwords aren’t hacked, but the majority of hacking is done in bulk fashion by breaking into company computers, not knocking off employees one-by-one¹.
When individual user passwords are revealed it’s usually because they’re given away in social engineer schemes, like phishing. This password changing won’t stop that.
Most of us aren’t worth enough for someone to spend the time and energy necessary to hack our accounts. I’m certainly not.
I change my password because my bosses have asked me. I’m a good employee. I’m just not sure how much we’re accomplishing.
¹ – “Hacking” of voicemail accounts by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World is heavily in the news right now. I think, as the story comes into focus, we’ll see it’s not really hacking that’s been done, but bribing people with access to share that access.
