Government’s #Thinkrandom Campaign Is Not Enough To Protect Consumers

Following a renewed effort from the Government today to protect UK consumers’ digital identities, Richard Parris, CEO at British cyber security company, Intercede commented below.

Richard Parris, CEO at Intercede:

“The Government’s renewed attempt to protect UK consumers’ digital identities today with the #thinkrandom campaign is obviously well intentioned. However, what I want to see is the Government putting more of an effort into openly encouraging service providers to eradicate simple password authentication altogether. In reality, how successful are campaigns like #thinkrandom and 2014’s Cyber Streetwise campaign in protecting consumers? Consumers can make their passwords as long and complicated as physically possible, and yet if a service is breached, these credentials are rendered useless. If a consumer has used the same password and email credential for another service (which happens more often than not), then hackers have effectively got the keys to the individual’s online identity.

“Barely a day goes by without a major security breach coming to light, and 75% of these breaches involve stolen passwords. We’ve had previous advice for businesses from GCHQ and now advice for consumers from the Government however what we really need is a fundamental rethink of the basic security protocols. It is possible and the UK is a leading technology provider in this area of Internet security.”