An Upgrade in Internet Security – Coming Soon?
Internet passwords: they’re easy to use, not too hard to remember, and they protect all aspects of our digital life from Facebook accounts to sensitive banking information. But the only problem with passwords is that they are still just words. Words that someone can see us typing in or use spyware to record to access aspect of our life.
In an attempt to make Internet security stronger against hackers, Google has come up with a second layer of identity verification. This second layer involves putting in a second, randomly generated code as part of our log in process on computer the website doesn’t recognize.
This would work like Facebook’s security feature of verifying our identity when logging in from a computer we never logged in from before, but the extra security would be in having to also enter a random code that gets sent to our mobile phone via text message.
This might sound annoying to have to enter extra information every time we use a new computer, but it sure does sound like it would make hacking into our account much harder than just stealing a password. A 30 seconds delay is not too high a price to pay if it really works at preventing hackers from breaking through the security that websites already have.
(Via CBC)
Not everyone has a mobile phone or wishes to give their mobile or landline number to a website with a record of violating user-privacy. A better plan is to have users, upon account creation, choose their security questions and answers and to choose an image they recognize. If it is good enough for my credit card company, it should be good enough for Google and social networks like Facebook.