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Security’s weak link: Us.

This week in Wired there is an article on the real problem with security: People. Even if you tell people you’re going to infect their system, they’ll go download it. The original article goes into more detail about the process, and the results.

This is not a new problem. A substantial percentage of the clueless will give you their password in exchange for candy or a pen. Kevin Mitnick, in this month’s Playboy, describes getting passwords to secure phone company sites just by being nice.

I guess I’m amused.

tc>

Explore posts in the same categories: Communication, Software

This entry was posted on May 15, 2007 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Communication, Software. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.

2 Comments on “Security’s weak link: Us.”

  1. Tom Comeau Says:
    May 23, 2007 at 1:21 pm

    A followup. I forgot the PIN associated with one of my SecurID keychain tokens. When I called for help, the support person suggested that I write the new PIN on a little piece of paper, and tape it to the back of the SecurID token.

    So much for two-factor authentication.

    tc>

  2. Single signon, but not what you wanted. « Tom Comeau, Geek Dad Says:
    May 30, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    [...] signon, but not what you wanted. I previously discussed user-level security.  This morning, I ran across this story about system administrators, and how they manage [...]

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