Assessment of current practices in creating and using passwords as a control mechanism for information access

Abstract

One of the critical issues in managing information within an organization is to ensure that proper controls exist and are applied in allowing people access to information. Passwords are used extensively as the main control mechanism to identify users wanting access to systems, applications, data files, network servers or personal information. In this article, the issues involved in selecting and using passwords are discussed and the current practices employed by users in creating and storing passwords to gain access to sensitive information are assessed. The results of this survey conclude that information managers cannot rely only on users to employ proper password control in order to protect sensitive information.