What is the Best Way to Manage Passwords – Shayype


What is the best way to manage passwords?

The pandemic and the lockdowns imposed in many countries across the world have created a huge number of opportunities for fraudsters, hackers and other criminals, who may attempt to take advantage of users with disabilities of all kinds, including those with visual impairments.

One of the problems in today’s world is that the tools we’ve always used to prove who we are, are not really fit for purpose.

Password Management

Take passwords for instance. We depend on them to protect virtually everything we do online. Yet there are so many ways strangers can get hold of them. Suddenly, they can take over our accounts and even our identities – logging in to websites, etc, pretending to be us.

We’d like to think that sighted people who volunteer to help the visually impaired conduct their online and digital business, are all honest. But supposing they are not? What if someone in such a position of trust were to record your passwords and then re-use them later or even sell them? Or what if a hacker manages to put a virus (“Trojan”) or physical chip on the device you are using? They can literally record everything you type, including passwords. Or a hacker manages to intercept the passwords you type in online, out there in the ether?

One-time Passcodes

The computing industry, realizing many years ago that passwords in security terms were deeply flawed, came up with so-called two-factor authentication. This requires you to use a separate device such as a phone or “key-fob” to generate one-time passcodes (OTPs). Another variation involves receiving such OTPs by SMS or text on your phone. Technically, this is called “two-step” authentication, if the same phone is being used to receive a code and then log into a service.

This is not risk-free either. Phones and key-fobs can be stolen or “shoulder-surfed” (as the name suggests by someone looking over your shoulder). They can also be accessed by a criminal long enough to get hold of the OTP. Worse still, mobile accounts can be taken over by criminals committing “SIM-swaps”. These criminals simply contact the user’s mobile provider and convince the company that THEY are the account holder, requiring a new SIM card. Once the new card has been inserted into the fraudster’s own phone, he/she can receive the OTPs or other security messages from banks, etc.

What is the Best Way to Manage Passwords? This team thinks they have the answer.

A small team in the UK thinks they may have a better answer. Their technology may significantly increase the security of users who are visually impaired. In another wonderful example of universal design principles , this innovation may benefit all. The team has developed a universal system ( Shayype TM ), which is designed to allow individuals to prove who they are in virtually any situation. Best of all, it’s a mainly...

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