Cybersecurity Awareness Month, with a Dose of Jimmy Fallon
Date: 2021-10-14
Author: Joakim Thorén, CEO
It’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month and who better to help us create awareness than Jimmy Fallon. If that sounds odd, bear with me… In a recent, timely, and very funny sketch, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon host lays out the frustrations of someone trying to access his Microsoft account without a password. He highlights how he feels as a user trying to overcome the many steps involved in password protection and one-time password (OTP) technology.
So given the October designation around cybersecurity, it’s a good time to remind users that complexity alone does not make a process immune to vulnerabilities. User authentication steps like OTP are not the panacea to truly securing user identities because these methods of mobile push notifications can be overcome by problems including these:
- The mobile device itself
- SIM card hijacking
- Malware or spyware on the device
- Flooding attacks that cause users to reply “yes” by rote
Hardware-based PKI with multi-factor authentication (MFA) remains the best user identity option. By taking something you know (a PIN or password), something you have (smartphone, token, company badge) and something that identifies only you (fingerprint, retinal scan, voice) your data is protected with almost no chance for a breach. Mobile devices like smartphones make MFA easy because they can eliminate some of the individual steps, such as using a fingerprint rather than a password.
Want to learn more about how Versasec helps manage user identities and our take on PKI? Click on our website and select the CHAT button. Want to see a funny take on OTP? Watch the Fallon clip again!
Photo by Mateus Maia on Unsplash
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