Password vulnerabilities
There are several possible vulnerabilities of relying solely on password-based security:
- Passwords can be easily forgotten, resulting in locked accounts and lost productivity.
- Passwords can be guessed or cracked through various means, such as brute-force attacks or dictionary attacks.
- Passwords could be shared with other persons and might be misused.
- Users may note down their passwords in a book which can be accessed and viewed by others.
- Passwords can be stolen through phishing scams or other types of social engineering attacks.
- Passwords can be shared or reused, creating a single point of failure if the password is compromised.
- Passwords can also be stored in plain text in the servers, and if the servers are compromised, the passwords are also compromised.
- If a user is using weak and easily guessable passwords, it increases the vulnerability for account getting hacked.
As a security measure Multi-factor authentication, password managers, and other forms of authentication can be used in conjunction with passwords to mitigate these risks.