California has just passed legislation which will make it illegal for electronics firms to use default passwords such as ‘password’ or ‘admin’ from 2020. As the first place on earth to introduce such a law, it is hoped that by giving each device a unique, complicated and irregular password cyber-attacks will occur less frequently.
A study by security firm Norton found that hackers stole a colossal $172 billion in 2017 – an amount greater than the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of many countries, including Qatar, Hungary and Morocco. Furthermore, according to a report by the Ponemon Institute, the number of hacks increased by average 27.4% in 2017 when compared to the previous year. Both corporates and consumers are equally likely to fall victim to a hacker or malware. While attacks that disable the entire operating system of businesses will always dominate headlines, many recent cyber-attacks have taken advantage of default and simple passwords in devices found in the home and the office. Read more
Source : forbes