Password authentication exposes users to identity theft

A whitepaper commissioned by two factor authentication provider, Swivel Secure, reveals how increasing convergence between business and consumer applications, such as Facebook and Twitter, together with a sharp increase in cloud-based resources have led end-users to reuse passwords across multiple online accounts. This prolific password reuse is leaving them, and the organizations they work for, vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Findings reveal that the critical issue of prolific password reuse has been brought to the world’s attention by a number of high profile data breaches which include eBay, Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, which have all resulted in end-users’ details being compromised.

According to the whitepaper, the main reason for the reliance on username and password authentication by service providers and business owners is due to the ease of implementation and the familiarity of the process.