Securing your private data is becoming more of a challenge as more thieves are after that private data for various reasons, none of which are very nice. We’ve been using passwords for a very long time to secure that data and recently we’ve been implementing biometrics as well. Google’s director of information security and privacy Heather Adkins wants to eliminate the password completely but does acknowledge that it will take time for this to happen. Adkins is pretty convinced that we will eventually have no passwords but rely on alternative methods of authentication to access our personal data.
“If you look at the average consumer, they have multiple online accounts, each one has different requirements for setting your passwords, they have to be eight characters and they have to have upper case letters, symbols and we’ve made it very complicated for users,” she told Business Insider during a visit to Sydney.
“To the point where actually, there’s a good chunk of the security industry that now recommends writing them down so that you can remember them all.”
“The idea that we create an ecosystem for better authentication for all users. That way we’re moving towards this world where the password is irrelevant and you have these other factors that help you authenticate,” she said.
“The death of the password is, I think, a very, very long ways off. But we’ve hit some really big milestones in changing the way we think about the user and the relationship to the machine and how we identify ourselves to one another.”
Adkins has a team at Google that is working on password elimination but as she readily admits, it will take some time. My guess is that we’ll never truly be 100% secure with any form of authentication, so long as there is someone who wants access to whatever data we may have. The safest form of protection is to live off the grid, which can probably be done but is also increasingly becoming more difficult.
What do you think of Heather Adkins’ idea of a passwordless world? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
[button link=”https://www.businessinsider.com.au/googles-security-boss-hates-passwords-and-is-trying-to-get-rid-of-them-2017-3″ icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: Business Insider[/button]
