Essay On Website Security

All passwords should be promptly changed if they are suspected of being disclosed, or are known to have

As we all know people are where we see the biggest problems in security breaches and problems on any computer or network system. People need to understand what they are allowed and not allowed to do, this is where policies, procedures, and training come in to play.

One of the other failures that the book presents us is the user’s weak password practice and how the intruder took advantage of this is to gain super user privileges and created several user accounts by gaining root privileges. All it takes is a one-time access as super user to establish his base into the defenders zone. This book describes how the intruder took advantage of brute force method to hack user accounts and password. Also, the intruder was smart enough to steal the password information file and even managed to encrypt all the dictionary words by using the same encryption algorithm and then compared those words with the stolen encrypted passwords file to find out passwords of user accounts. The scientists/ researchers at the laboratories who are not aware of such kind of exploitations made intruder’s work easy by having easy to guess passwords, never bothered to change the passwords from time to time or in fact did not realize the importance of having strong passwords in order to maintain and protect their research data in a safe and secure way. Even today, not all the users realize the importance of having strong/secure passwords and we come across such instances where intruders exploit users ignorance. (For example, Two years ago, before I enrolled in MS-CS program, I did not know how brute force attacks work or

RoboForm securely stores user names and password when you log into a site, and supplies them when you return.

The most effective way to protect your personal information on the internet is to have a strong password. A strong password should consist of a mixture of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters. Ideally you want a unique password made up of at least ten characters for every website you have an account on.

Many people use simple easy to remember passwords that do not require much thought or using the same simple password for everything. Those are common mistakes amongst password users. In order to insure your accounts are safe creating a strong password and creating habits that increase the security are a necessity. Also making sure you know when your information is secure is an important fact to know.

Passwords are another protection measure that most people are very familiar with. Over time, passwords have needed to become more complex to try to keep others, including algorithms, from figuring out your password and hacking your accounts. While passwords are one method of protection, it is not recommended to be the only level of protection utilized to protect data on a computer system.

With the intoduction of Web 2.0, sharing information through social networking has increased and as there has been increased business/services over the internet websites are often attacked directly. Hackers either attempt to compromise the network or alternetivly the end-users opening the website.

The internet and online sites can be an open door for someone to commit identity theft. In order to combat this I need to continue to “create a strong password, by avoiding common or easy-to-guess passwords.” (Greene-Lewis, 2012) I use a password that contains both upper and lower case letters in addition to numbers and I often combine one or more words together to make it difficult for someone to guess my password. It is a bad idea to use common or easily guessed passwords, such as your birthdate or pet’s

In the past 12 months, there have been nearly 432 million accounts hacked belonging to many websites and applications. Many of this information stolen was sensitive, personal data such as credit card information, phone numbers, passwords, and even addresses.

This ends up giving the hackers an enormous help. When it comes to safety and security, people are usually uneducated which result in lost of personal information being breaches with ease. People can give their information away to hackers to the slightest carelessness. Using common password or having the same login can lead to a system breach. One study found only 45% of consumers change password in a yearly basis and the most popular passwords are “password” and “123456”( Morgan, 2011). Hackers don’t need to scam experts to guess these passwords and access the information of the individuals.

The problem with passwords is that they require to be extremely complex in order to be protective. You also need a different password for all of your logins – this means password retention is hard. This is problematic for both the user and the business. Both will be compromised in the event that hackers obtain the password – businesses will need to spend a lot of money in preventing hacking, but they are still vulnerable for users’ lack of proper handling of passwords. Knowing where liability lies in the event of hacking can be difficult.

Web applications are nowadays serving as a company’s public face to the internet. This has created the need to identify threats and attacks directed to data servers and web applications. Hackers exploit vulnerabilities in input validation and authentication affecting the web application in order to gain illegal access and disclose sensitive data or manipulate it to their benefits.

There are two types of theses but both have their own problems. The first "checks every password possible from the entry site." (1) The second uses a program that goes in and reads the passwords off. The problem with both is that you have to "get the cracker into the site, undetected"(1) You also must cover you trail. Some prefer the manual method first. "There are actually lists of 100(or more) most-used passwords."(2) Hackers have reported that, "a simple password that appears in the English dictionary will take about an hour or less for a hacker to crack."(4) "This is not considered a long time to a hacker."(Brian 2) Third, they use what is called web spoofing. This is the most dangerous because they see what every you are doing. They can get you passwords plus any other information you might have. This web spoofing is caused by a middle man who can redirect information from your page, to his page, to the page you were sending the information to. "The middle man sees all."(How are they getting my password? 3) This is above all the easiest way to get any information that they might want or need. The last method is through Java. Through a program they can hack into a computers hard drive through your Java program. That is why if you can avoid keeping your passwords on your hard drive do it. Some people keep their passwords on three by five cards and store them which is allot safer. The best method to

Passwords for access to personal phones, computers, online portals, and websites has become very prevalent and the best practice for authentication. Additionally, passwords authenticate mobile phones, computer networks and databases for many software applications. However, ensuring that passwords are encrypted, and safe have become one of the greatest challenges for most organizations. This paper will review some of the vulnerabilities of the use of passwords and provide controls to implementation to assist with the management and handling of passwords.