The ancient folk tale of Ali Baba and the forty thieves mentions the use of a password.
In this story, Ali Baba finds that the phrase “Open Sesame” magically opens the entrance to a cave where the thieves have hidden their treasure.
Similarly, modern computer systems use passwords to authenticate users and allow them entrance to system resources and data shares on an automated basis.
The use of passwords in computer systems likely can be traced to the earliest timesharing and dial-up networks.
Passwords were probably not used before then in purely batch systems.
The security provided by a password system depends on the passwords being kept secret at all times.
Thus,
a password is vulnerable to compromise whenever it is used, stored, or even known.
In a password-based authentication mechanism implemented on a computer system,passwords are vulnerable to compromise due to five essential aspects of the password system:
Passwords must be initially assigned to users when they are enrolled on the system;
Users’ passwords must be changed periodically;
The system must maintain a “password database”;
Users must remember their passwords; and Users must enter their passwords into the system at authentication time.
Because of these factors, a number of protection schemes have been developed for maintaining password
These include implementing policies and mechanisms to ensure “strong” passwords, encrypting the password database, and simplifying the sign-on and password synchronization processes.
Even so, a number of sophisticated cracking tools are available today that threaten password security.
For that reason, it is often advised that passwords be combined with some other form of security to achieve strong authentication.
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