For years, Microsoft has hammered away at the security flaws in its desktop operating system. Now the company is looking to plug another security hole: weak passwords.
People tend to choose easy-to-remember passwords--which means they're easy to crack. Even complex passwords can be stolen. They've moved from a security measure to a security risk, says Microsoft Chair Bill Gates, who for the past year has been publicly urging customers to stop relying on passwords. Last month, the software giant set an example for those customers when it kicked off a big push to adopt a second security measure for its internal networks: smart cards for every employee.
By the end of 2005, tens of thousands of telecommuting Microsoft employees will be issued the cards, which will be required to log on to the company's networks. "Moving to biometric and smart cards is a wave that is coming, and we see our leading customers doing this," Gates told attendees at the IT Forum in Denmark last month. "In time, we will completely replace passwords." This isn't the first time Microsoft has got behind smart cards as a second line of protection for businesses.
News source: C|Net News.com
People tend to choose easy-to-remember passwords--which means they're easy to crack. Even complex passwords can be stolen. They've moved from a security measure to a security risk, says Microsoft Chair Bill Gates, who for the past year has been publicly urging customers to stop relying on passwords. Last month, the software giant set an example for those customers when it kicked off a big push to adopt a second security measure for its internal networks: smart cards for every employee.
By the end of 2005, tens of thousands of telecommuting Microsoft employees will be issued the cards, which will be required to log on to the company's networks. "Moving to biometric and smart cards is a wave that is coming, and we see our leading customers doing this," Gates told attendees at the IT Forum in Denmark last month. "In time, we will completely replace passwords." This isn't the first time Microsoft has got behind smart cards as a second line of protection for businesses.
News source: C|Net News.com
B]Features:[/B]
· The best PC performance: Choose between a silent running mode or the best graphics performance settings and the wizard automatically adjusts all performance metrics (clocks, voltages, fan speeds, bus speeds, etc.) to get the best options for the hardware in the system.
· Improved dynamic overclocking: Provides on-the-fly overclocking and BIOS configuration within an easy-to-use Windows interface that is streamlined and simplified for better user understanding.
· Benchmarking wizard: See how your PC configuration stacks up against synthetic benchmarks before and after adjusting system parameters.
· Saved system profiles: Save, import, and export custom overclocking or BIOS profiles. Assign profiles to favorite programs for automatic application. A safety "watchdog" checks temperature and steps system down if failure could occur.
· GPU overclocking: Overclocking of GeForce FX and GeForce 6 Series GPUs is supported in concert with system overclocking, temperature monitoring, and system profiles.
· System troubleshooting: An automated reporting tool captures all needed information to help you determine when problems may be happening to the system, and helps you troubleshoot.
· Improved system monitoring: Temperatures, voltages, and bus speeds are now available as an “always-on-top” window with a transparency option so that it is visible at all times.
· Voltage and bus speed monitoring: Track actual motherboard voltages, GPU clocks, bus speeds, and CPU core speed to ensure safe and correct settings.
· Temperature and fan speed monitoring: Real-time monitoring of CPU, GPU and system temperatures helps prevent hardware damage. nTune supports dual-CPU and SLI multi-GPU systems.
· Dynamically adjustable voltages and fan speeds: Adjust motherboard voltage levels without a reboot, as well as dynamically control fan speeds.
· Dynamically adjustable memory timings: Change critical memory timings without rebooting and without entering the BIOS.
Its neat. But no one uses this computer but me.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/05/biometric_thinkpad_t42/
The key word there is crack. They don't need to read your mind, just a nice ntlm hash or similar and a bit of time.
Biometric stuff, however, is probably the best rout in the end. Fingerprint scanners, iris scanners, stuff like that would be almost impossible to crack unless you plan on lopping off some poor bugger's hand or something.
It might hit small, but it won't hit big. If anything is going to happen it'd be fingerprints, but even that isn't a perfect method. Whoops, paper cut!
I agree with your point about smart cards though...not very convenient. Biometric readers are the way to go.
Heh... if Microsoft haven't yet completely rolled this out on themselves.. how can they expect the avg small business to change to this system anytime soon....
Why aren't I seeing unix-variants such as Linux or BSD Distributors say things even similar to what the Chairman of M$ has just said of "don't rely on passwords".
Make a better operating system, then tell to companies n individuals what to do. Until then, improve security as you always seem to need it.
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