Passwords

 On the internet the user is identified only by his username , known to everybody , and his password , known only to him . The password id what makes an unknown person an authenticated user, with all his privileges and his identity’s responsibilities . If somebody else uses the right user’s password , for the intranet this other person is exactly the user . Law 196/2003 explicitly forbids users form giving their password to other users , even when they are absent from work . These are some , often underestimated , malign action a passwords thief can do :-

1.  Steal personal information :- The thief can read the user’s emails and personal information .

2. Steal privacy protected data :- The thief can gain access to data about other people protected by privacy , or read email received from other people . The legal responsible of this privacy violation is the thief as well as the user who did not protect other people’s data .

3. Steal money :- The thief can find the user’s bank account numbers and password , sometimes directly from the user’s web browser’s history .

4. Delete and modify data :- The thief can delete user’s important data , or even worse he can modify these data without the user’s knowledge . {Bank no. , Friend’s e-mail address , degree thesis content , add illegal pictures.}

5. Steal identity :- for the computer the thief is now the user , and therefore he can act to the outside world exactly as if it were the user , for example answering to e-mails , subscribing to website , withdrawing from exams .

6. Start illegal activities :- Anybody who wants to start an illegal internet activity will obviously use somebody else identity , so he will not get into troubles when the activity is discovered .

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