Honeywords — Honeypot Passwords

CowboyRobot writes "Businesses should seed their password databases with fake passwords and then monitor all login attempts for use of those credentials to detect if hackers have stolen stored user information. That's the thinking behind the 'honeywords' concept first proposed this month in 'Honeywords: Making Password-Cracking Detectable (PDF),' a paper written by Ari Juels, chief scientist at security firm RSA, and MIT professor Ronald L. Rivest (the 'R' in 'RSA'). Honeywords aren't meant to serve as a replacement for good password security practices. But as numerous breaches continue to demonstrate, regardless of the security that businesses have put in place, they often fail to detect when users' passwords have been compromised."