20 years: technology, cybersecurity & operations
Every time we buy online, post on social media or send a work email, we're using some form of personal identification. But how do the companies know if it's really us doing these things or an imposter? Your password is a good start. In this video, Ciarán Rooney lays the groundwork on digital authentication, from how the concept of passwords came to be and how we measure how good a password is.
Every time we buy online, post on social media or send a work email, we're using some form of personal identification. But how do the companies know if it's really us doing these things or an imposter? Your password is a good start. In this video, Ciarán Rooney lays the groundwork on digital authentication, from how the concept of passwords came to be and how we measure how good a password is.
7 mins 39 secs
Digital authentication is an integral part of the process of verifying who a person is. It ensures that the user (or the device they are using) matches up to who, or what, they claim to be. Once the user has been verified, they can then be granted access to applications, data, or services. A password is a common tool of authentication. A company should ensure the password is hashed via a one-way cryptographic hash function so that no one can read it. The individual should make sure the password entropy is high - that is, the measurement of the lack of predictability of a password.
Key learning objectives:
Understand basic user authentication
Define a hashing function
Learn how to measure password entropy