Word: passwords
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...what they perceived to be a history of insubordination, Alvin Frost's bosses in the District of Columbia municipal government tossed the Harvard-trained cash-management analyst out of his office and changed the locks last week. But Frost was prepared: he had changed the seven-letter computer password to the district's cash-management system, electronically locking financial officials out of key data. All he would say about the new password was that it concerned the Declaration of Independence...
...fees that range from $5 to $15 a month, customers who apply for home banking receive floppy disks that enable them to link their personal computers via modem and telephone line to their bank's computer. After punching in a secret password, the home banker can display his current balances, confirm that deposits have been properly credited or call for an up-to-date listing of all the checks that have cleared. Ask a question about banking services, and the answer will be on the screen the next day. Bills from merchants who join an ever expanding roster provided...
...Communications Network. The teenager began roaming through the New York area of the national system that ties more than 1200 computers together into a setup open to about 150,000 paying customers. Accessing systems almost at random, the student gave the name set of standard answers to demands for password identification from the large computers on the network--hello, test, sysop--ht might type, as his screens filled with logos from systems thousands of miles away. Finally he hit the jackpot, Instead of a flat "password invalid" message the screen filled with additional information: how to open files, change...
...least two occasions, causing the system that monitors and plans patient treatment to close down entirely. They also added personal touches to the machine. Spurred by the movie Wargames that had just opened at theatres across the Midwest, they programmed the Sloan-Kettering computer to respond to the password "Joshua," just like in the film. On a different computer, they caused the system to respond to the password with another War Games line: "Would you like a nice game of chess, Dr. Falken...
With a relatively secure operating system, therefore, the next step, protection of passwords, is up to the user. Much of the security here, although exhaustively reviewed and debated by experts, is just common sense: "good" passwords (i.e. imaginative words that prowlers will have a difficult time guessing), frequent password changes, and constant monitoring of computer users. "The lay thing to implementing the systems," says Jeff Gibson director of Security at Digital Equipment Company. "If people don't change the passwords then if a computer manufacturer is making xyz's and every xyz has a password of 'hello' and someone knows...