Since 2013, World Password Day has been celebrated by the international cybersecurity community. Mark Burnett, security researcher, and his seminal work, 2005’s “Perfect Password: Selection, Protection, Authentication” inspired this day dedicated to what we know best here at LastPass – passwords!
“Passwords,” Burnett relates, “in some form or another, have long been associated with security. We see it in literature all the time: to unlock a door, to pass a guard, or to distinguish friend from enemy.”
Passwords, and their predecessors, have been an important part of human history, and there’s no better way to appreciate the present than to understand the past.
So, on this World Password Day 2022, we’d like to take a look back – wayyyyyyyy back – at the history of the password, from BC to AD to the silver screen.
Our first stop – Ancient Greece
Polybius, a Greek historian who lived between 264-146 BC, describes a “watchword” in book 6 of his Histories, used as a security device by the armies of the Roman Empire. The watchword was inscribed on a wooden tablet and passed around the army ranks to distinguish between friend or foe. The earliest hackers, perhaps?Fast forward to the MIT campus in the 1960s
Fernando Corbató, American computer scientist, developed the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), which would divide up a computer’s processing power time, allowing for multiple processing jobs for more people. To allow individual users to keep their files from other users, passwords were used, ushering in the age of the computer password -- and the eventual need for password managers!Cybersecurity on the silver screen
The influx of sci-fi films at the end of the 20th century marked a turning point in password popularity. Now passwords weren’t just something used by computer programmers, they were plot points in major blockbusters. One of the first uses of a computer password in a film? That would be WarGames, released in 1983, wherein high school hacker David Lightman breaks into a government war games simulation using the password “Joshua.” 1996’s Mission: Impossible sees Ethan Hunt breaking into the terminal at CIA headquarters using the password “AW96B6.” In The Matrix Reloaded (2003), Trinity expertly hacks into a power plant’s computer system. What does she reset the password to? Z1ON0101.World Password Day 2022
So, how can you continue this storied legacy? By practicing good password hygiene, of course! Here are three things you can do right now to celebrate World Password Day.- Create strong passwords for your online accounts. A strong password should have at least 16 characters, including a mix of capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols (Z1ON0101 would not make the cut!).
- Use a password manager. Take the worry out of remembering all your passwords by storing them in a password vault. You can then autofill login information, share your passwords securely, and generate new ones.
- Turn on dark web monitoring. Receive alerts if your information is at risk and get ahead of hackers and headline-making data breaches.
