Security strategies
keeping data safe
How secure is your password?
Imagine a system where passwords are only made up of lowercase characters from a-z, limited to a length of 3 characters eg bob or cat or hat.
How long would it take a hacker to guess your password?
Let's try!
hack the password!
If you have a few hours to spare, you'll get it eventually!
What if the length of the password length increased to 5 or 10? It would take longer to guess, but it is still very guessable, especially for a computer program designed to guess passwords.
What if passwords could contain uppercase letters too. And numbers. And symbols! eg p@55w0rd!
Let's do a little research. Complete this worksheet:
Biometric passwords
Your body has a fingerprint. It is unique to you!
Your fingerprint is unique.
The patterns in your iris are unique.
Your face is unique!
So, computer systems can use this information to create a kind of password to enter a system - it is known as a biometric password.
If your laptop has face recognition software, you can set up your device to only allow someone with your face to access your computer!
If your laptop has a fingerprint scanner, you can set up your laptop to only allow someone with your fingerprint to access your computer!
Webpage Design Options
So, you can help yourself by choosing a strong password.
In fact, these days when you sign up for an online account, the service provider will often demand that you:
- use at least 8 characters
- use at least 1 capital letter
- use at least 1 special character eg ! or & or @
Yes, the service provider, eg an online banking system, is trying to keep you safe from hackers.
Another option to help keep passwords and sensitive data safe is to use drop-down boxes when designing webpages requiring sensitive data to be input.
For example, some online banks will ask users to enter a certain set of characters from their password eg:
Please enter the 3rd, 5th and 6th character from your password:
How does this strategy help to keep your data dafe? It is because the user is not using the keyboard to enter the data. Hackers sometimes use spyware to record your keyboard activity, and dropdown boxes don't involve keyboard activity.