Why Your Strongest Password Is Still Vulnerable

Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) recently revealed that consumers aren't very good at selecting a password security question.

According to ABC News, users frequently select the "What's your favorite food?" option. The answers were as predictable as one would expect.

This may not sound like an issue for those who use strong passwords and change them frequently. The problem is that password security questions are designed to help a user change or retrieve their passwords. By choosing a predictable answer, users could be more vulnerable than they realize.

"When you think of security, you cannot think in terms of a finish line," Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry told Benzinga. "Whatever you may think or may do, probably the day it is launched -- at that exact same instant -- it has [become] obsolete."

Niles Lawrence, president of stock analysis site Vuru, thinks there might be a solution in the works, but it could take time.

"As more artificial intelligence comes out and there's more [ways] to crack into passwords, passwords are going to get more streamlined in the sense of biometrics and stuff like that," Lawrence told Benzinga. "It's really hard to access [Apple's] TouchID because it's based on your fingerprint as opposed to a four-number pin."

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is not the only company working on a biometric solution. Bionym has created a wristband that uses the wearer's unique heart signature in place of keys and passwords. Lawrence thinks this would be difficult to hack.

"I think as everything gets more complicated and technology gets more advanced and AI gets more advanced, you will have to use stuff that is very unique to [each individual]," Lawrence added.

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Don't Get Your Hopes Up Too High

Chowdhry remains skeptical of current and future password solutions.

"I would not be so euphoric about any other initiative that may be coming through," he said. "It will have its own issues."

Chowdhry said that security is "basically a continuum." He believes that researchers can come up with other ideas, but warned that they will be obsolete the day they are launched.

"Nothing's a substitute for common sense," said Chowdhry. "Whatever you provide, you are going to get compromised."

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.