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One In Ten Admins Use Default Passwords
David Utter
Staff Writer
2005-06-24
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A European survey conducted by a security software company finds quite a few people have not changed key passwords.
At Infosecurity, Europe's largest information security event, a Massachusetts based company surveyed nearly 200 professionals in attendance. Cyber-Ark asked those professionals about passwords and their management.
Nearly ten percent of companies never have changed their administrative passwords, the survey found. That's a practice that would have auditors at US public companies flying into apoplectic rages due to Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.
Half of the participants in the survey lacked confidence that passwords used in the organization were being stored securely. And twenty-five percent said members of their IT staff could view administrative passwords without permission.
People still seem to keep passwords the way they always have: by writing them down on a piece of paper. One quarter of the surveyed participants believed their colleagues still favor Post It notes over digital password management.
And for some users, digital password management seems to mean storing those passwords in an Excel spreadsheet.
"Companies are realizing they need to become far more nimble in their ability to regularly and rapidly change the passwords that literally are the keys to the IT infrastructure kingdom," said Tom Crawford, president and CEO of Cyber-Ark.
"They are caught in a catch-22 between locking up passwords tight and providing the rapid access and management needed to make changes that avoid expensive downtime or security breaches."
Companies like Cyber-Ark and others offer solutions to enable digital password management. As more legislation like Sarbanes-Oxley appears, not to mention the ongoing series of highly publicized security breaches like CardSystems Solutions' exposure of 40 million credit cards, these solutions will likely become more prevalent in the workplace.
Directors at public companies are sure to bring the matter up with information security staffers to help ensure improved security on their systems.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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