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Need the opposite costume, the overly eager sys admin.
- wants to force password changes once a month for security
- constantly changing security policies to reflect the flavor of the month
- constantly sends out phishing emails tests, wonders why no one replies to any of his emails
My fucking uni is trying to move to passwordless, but you will always need a password to log onto any lab device, and to the wifi, so why?
I mean you don’t actually need a password for that when it’s implemented the right way
…implemented the right way
see
…you will always need a password
A website once complained my password contained 3 consecutive letters there were 1 away from each other. This was back when I used sentences for passwords. It was complaining about the word worst because of r-s-t.
That’s wack. Passphrases are second only to random passwords generated by a password generator in terms of security, character proximity doesn’t matter with that much length.
Jesus fuck
Then they have you make it some 12 character length minimum string with mixed case and special characters and dictionary lookup so it isn’t some common phrase but you’re also logging in through a telnet instance onto a Unix system.
As someone in the InfoSec field, I also hate those people.
Sysadmin: “A clear indication of phishing email is the sense of urgency. We would never send out any email regarding urgent updates that needs immediate action.”
Also sysadmin: “URGENT!!! You must update your system now before Friday!!! Click link here for instructions! Otherwise you will be locked out!”
Spot on. We’re changing XYZ policy and we need everyone to do this training within the week. Wait, why’s no one opening my emails
Then do this to computer-shaped instrument controller systems that have accounts that can not have passwords changed or the application won’t run. Or service accounts, so if you pop in after 6 months, nobody knows the current password and the IT guy only comes in 2 hours/week. And that was yesterday. And no, no contact information present…
- Installs antivirus on servers that wrecks application performance
- installs content filtering proxy that prevents developers from reading “hacking materials” like OWASP documentation
- won’t let developers install anything on their own machines without filing a ticket and waiting 6 weeks
- pushes unannounced antivirus updates that pop up OS security dialogs like “Netscan Antivirus would like to monitor all network traffic. Enter your password to approve”, and is surprised when users don’t enter their passwords.
Your corporate IT guy
Sigh. Their hearts are in the right places…
They usually don’t have a choice. They know this stuff is bad, but they need it to demonstrate compliance with XYZ framework so they can fill out the marketing copy so sales can land a contract with some big customer that wants to know why $competitor has better security than you.
We might work at the same company lmao. My laptop is borderline unusable due to all the monitoring garbage despite having really fast hardware
Password expiration is no longer considered a best practice. FYI.
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I got to step 20, where my password suddenly caught on fire and Paul died.
My day is ruined.
expired
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expired
Yes, that’s true, and hasn’t been considered so for a long time
why so?
Encourages users to just add a rotating number or other not too secure thing to their password. I know that’s what I did when I worked somewhere with that dumbfuck policy.
Yep. My least secure password is the one I use at work because I’m restricted to 9-12 characters, can’t be sequential forwards or backwards including keys next to each other (abc, 123, qwerty), can’t begin with a number, must contain at least three numbers, must be at least four characters different from your last twelve passwords, and must be changed every 90 days. Oh and it can’t include your first or last name.
Most of my coworkers just use a family members name and then change a few numbers at the end and keep a post it note at their desk with the numbers so they don’t forget it.
Last time I worked in a company with this policy I actually made it into an advantage.
Sure, having to change password every 3 months was annoying, but honestly I did not see advantage in rotating 2 or 3 passwords because since I would use the password many times a day, getting used to new password was easy enough—using “old new” passwords from 6-9 months ago would not be any easier: it would just mean that I have to remember some password for longer time.
I also realized that if I re-use the expired password elsewhere, I can actually cascade the passwords across my main systems: for example, when password expired at work, I would re-use it for personal e-mail, and re-use that old e-mail password for something less valuable, such as “random” forums.
That way I could keep steady flow of passwords through all my accounts, while at the any time I would always get the muscle memory for free: there would always just one “truly new” password – and it would be the most used one, hence the fastest one to learn.
Well, of course this assumes some level of security in the systems I used. If my work got hacked (or keylogged) and someone could keep stealing all the passwords for long enough they could use them for all my services :-D If they only got hashes and everyone else used salt, the damage would be limited, though.
Also, counter-productive measures such as “must contain all blah blah” even if it’s 15 chars long or worse, limiting password chars or length can make things more complicated. (I think that’s why I almost never changed my PayPal password – I suspect they still don’t allow spaces.)
Oh really? How come?
NIST removed password expiration from their recommendations in 2020. Instead they recommend only forcing password changes when compromise is suspected.
The main argument is that they do not make users or systems demonstrably safer and encourage bad password habits.
I would imagine most users change their password by only 1 character, and maybe even in sequential order.
When time comes to change the password, it becomes password1234 instead of password123. Or password234. Something easy to remember, most users don’t care about best security practices, and changing to a similar password is very convenient. Especially if it’s “only” for work stuff
Even worse is the CEO.
He needs access to everything and he’s far too important to waste time with security.
This is the reason why those scams are so successful:
“Hi this is the CEO, wire $10000 to this account right now, we need it there yesterday. I don’t have time to talk, just do it. Bye”
“What do you mean this password is too short? I use it for everything!”
“how many times do i have to tell you that your name + your birthday date js not a good password!”
Needs a special character?
Password123!
“My files are highly confidential”
password is suburb+suburbpostcode
I used to have a lady I worked with who was like this. She had the common sense of a fucking carrot and was dumb as shit. What was weird is she was highly skilled in the one job she was hired for, the rest of the time she would click on everything and I would had to fix her computer multiple times a week. One time I tried to walk her thru something on the phone and I told her to click on an icon, her response was “Whats an icon?”
I bet he also picks up USB sticks from the parking lot and plugs them into his work computer.
On the other side of things, don’t you love systems that return “invalid password: password is not unique”?
The cybersecurity email tests I get at work are so transparent - Hi user, You have an unpaid invoice, please follow link to pay immediately.
I wish I could I could reply no I don’t fuck off but I’d probably get in trouble lol
At my work the company wanted to show some gratitude and sent out email with free ice cream vouchers to everybody. Many suspected this was just another one of these cybersecurity email tests, so the company had to clarify it’s all real.
I think it’s hilarious the thought about hackers using ice cream as bait. Maybe that would work?
Evidently not at your company
Well, I guess it’s good that people were being vigilant. But yes, I guess anything could work
The place where I work does these regularly, and you get slammed hard if you fall for one, and frowned at if you don’t use the “Report Phishing” button on them.
But the knuckleheads contracted testing out to a company that always sends the tests from the same domain.
So anyone even the slightest bit savvy about spam/phishing/email headers can set an Outlook rule to dump test emails to a special folder and pop an alert.
Clicks on everything or is too scared to click on anything and never learns how to use the software
Fuck my email is (first name)(last initial)(birthday and month)@gmail.com
Searches for things online by typing it as a post on social media instead of using a search engine as in: “Google what is the weather like today near me?”
Hey. Password123 is progress, right?
They made me change it, so it’s Password124 now.
… And then 2 months later, “why can’t I log in”
