Post by Project e(16) on Sept 15, 2021 20:42:07 GMT 5.5
You can now have a totally password-less Microsoft account
Passwords are a bad product, and Microsoft knows it. Every year, we see reports on the most popular passwords that are used, and those that know how to make a secure password always find it a bit jarring to see how many people are still using things like ‘123456’, ‘password’, ‘abc123’, and so on.
Microsoft has been waging a war against passwords for some time. They’re simply not secure, and even if you have a good password, it’s a hassle. You have to make this compromise between a secure password and something that you can remember. So now, you’ll actually be able to remove the password from your Microsoft account.
This is something that’s been available for commercial customers since March, and now it’s available for consumers. You can use Microsoft Authenticator, Windows Hello, a security key, or a verification code to sign into your MSA.
In its blog post, Microsoft talked a lot about just how problematic passwords can be. People will name their passwords after a pet or a relative, which is insecure to start with. Or, they make a password that they end up forgetting, and that doesn’t help. The Redmond firm says that a third of people would rather stop using an account entirely instead of resetting their password. In a more fun Twitter poll, one in five people said that they’d rather accidentally hit ‘reply-all’ on an email than reset their password.
It’s a broken system, and one that’s been in place for as long as we’ve had accounts for anything. It’s gotten better with two-factor authentication, and the fact that systems are always getting smarter about when 2FA is necessary, such as when a device is on a new network or when it’s a new device. Still, the password is always the first factor.
That ends now though, or at least you now have the option for it to end for you. You can now remove the password from your Microsoft account completely.
