Do you have a card in your wallet or a list on your PDA consisting of user names and passwords you use? If so, you're not the only person who can't remember them all, and there may be security risks and costs associated with the way you manage the data. Rainbow Technologies—a security firm pushing its own password management solution—claims that a recent survey it conducted shows that the current use of user names and passwords to secure data and applications is both insecure and expensive. The survey respondents consisted of over 3,000 IT managers, executives, and security personnel.

Rainbow's survey concluded that much of the insecurity arises from the sheer number of user names and passwords kept by individuals and from the need to frequently change these security identifiers. A large number of respondents reported that they regularly forget or lose passwords, resulting in downtime and consultations with IT managers.

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