Despite Data Thefts, the Password Endures

Passwords are a bane to computer and smartphone users and a security threat to companies.

"Passwords are awful and need to be shot," says Jeremy Grant, head of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, a task force created by President Barack Obama in 2011 to bolster online security. Despite all their flaws, passwords are so ubiquitous, cheap to use and entrenched in the architecture of websites and the rhythm of human behavior that efforts to supplant them have barely budged. "It's the only piece of technology from 50 years ago we're still using today," says Brett McDowell, a senior Internet security adviser at eBay's PayPal unit.