Could New Technology Help Prevent Password Theft?

A new study looks at the possible technology that can help protect people from cyber attacks, including "phishing," which study authors from Royal Holloway University believe has affected some 37.3 million individuals in the last year alone.

Phishing involves cyber criminals creating fake websites that look like real ones but lure users into entering their login details and other personal information. The study notes that the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has successfully launched phishing attacks against employees of the Financial Times in order to enable them to post material via their website and create mass attacks that were launched within Iran using a fake Google email right before the elections took place.

Fortunately, these scientists have created a new system called Uni-IDM that enables those to create electronic identity cards in order to access each website. As the cards are securely stored, this allows owners to simply click on one and log back in safely with the knowledge that the website is truly authentic or not real.

"We have known for a long time that the username and password system is problematic and very insecure, proving a headache for even the largest websites. LinkedIn was hacked, and over six million stolen user passwords were then posted on a website used by Russian cyber criminals; Facebook admitted in 2011 that 600,000 of its user accounts were being compromised every single day," said Professor Chris Mitchell from Royal Holloway's Information Security Group, via a press release. "Despite this, username and password remains the dominant technology, and while large corporations have been able to employ more secure methods, attempts to provide homes with similar protection have been unsuccessful, except in a few cases such as online banking. The hope is that our technology will finally make it possible to provide more sophisticated technology to protect all internet users."

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More information regarding the study can be found via the University of London's website.