Lebensnäher als die Peerio-Vision ist die Passwort-Handhabung eines US-amerikanischen Finanzdienstleisters, der nicht nur allen Beschäftigten vorschreibt, ihre persönlichen Passwörter mit vier Kolleginnen zu teilen, sondern darüber hinaus flächendeckendes Social Engineerung eingesetzt hat, als ein großer Teil der Belegschaft seine Passwörter nicht mehr preisgeben konnte:
Cantor Fitzgerald did have extensive contingency plans in place, including a requirement that all employees tell their work passwords to four nearby colleagues. But now a large majority of the firm’s 960 New York employees were dead.
[Lutnik] soon found himself on the phone, desperately trying to compartmentalize his own agony while calling the spouses, parents and siblings of his former colleagues to console them — and to ask them, ever so gently, whether they knew their loved ones’ passwords. Most often they did not, which meant that Lutnick had to begin working his way through a checklist that had been provided to him by the Microsoft technicians.
What is your wedding anniversary? Tell me again where he went for undergrad? You guys have a dog, don’t you? What’s her name? You have two children. Can you give me their birth dates?In the end, Microsoft’s technicians got what they needed. The firm was back in operation within two days. The same human sentimentality that made Cantor Fitzgerald’s passwords
weak, ultimately proved to be its saving grace.
Ein durchdachtes Rollen- und Rechtekonzept hätte Cantor Fitzgerald vielleicht auch geholfen; mich motiviert die Geschichte, meinen über die Jahre erwürfelten Passwortnachlass zu regeln.