Managing User Account and Password Security
A whole bunch of authentication schemes are used today, and although it’s important to know about these different schemes and how they work, all that knowledge doesn’t equal power if your network’s users aren’t schooled on how to manage their account names and passwords correctly. This is because if bad guys get their hands on usernames and passwords, it gives them a way to get into your network. Worse, if a hacker gains the administrator account name and password for your network, it doesn’t matter what authentication protocol or server you’re using—that hacker isn’t just going to get in, they’re going to get in armed with the escalated rights that type of account allows, meaning they can do some serious damage.
With that in mind, let’s get into some solid ways to manage user accounts and passwords and follow that up by talking about the key authentication methods in use...
