World Password Day: is there still a need?

May 5th will be “World Password Day” globally. Conceived by Intel in 2013, World Password Day has certainly helped develop digital security awareness over the past few years. but today it assumes an anachronistic value, according to the experts of Clusit, the Italian Association for IT security.

“If it were the day to create awareness about the risks of automobiles, World Password Day today would be equivalent to celebrating medieval horse harnesses”, says Alessio Pennasilico, member of the Clusit Scientific Committee.

“It is a day that had a meaning when the technological tools did not allow anyone to adopt other methods of authentication”, continues Pennasilico. “Nine years after its establishment, a change of perspective is a must, based on the current scenario, with all due respect to those who still hope that passwords can protect our data”.

On the one hand, in fact, there are currently technologies – such as multifactor authentication via app, or biometrics – “free available” on almost all digital services commonly used today, which guarantee unparalleled effectiveness compared to the old concept of passwords.

On the other hand, it should be acknowledged that it is difficult for humans to manage passwords adequately. Suffice it to say that for years the most used password in our country (as well as globally) has been “123456”, and that a cybercriminal takes roughly less than a second to decrypt it.

The proposal of the Clusit experts is therefore – provocatively – to dedicate a day to the “Secure Authentication”, Dedicated to creating awareness at all levels in the most effective way to guarantee access security.