No More Passwords? Microsoft Says It’s Coming Soon
Microsoft unveils a plan to do away with passwords. Yes, you can have no password with Microsoft. This is welcome news. I have so many passwords and honestly, I know very few of them. Barely a week goes by I don’t have to reset one if I didn’t just save it on my computer. It seems like every website you go to wants you to create an account and password. I get it, but in some instances, it just seems unnecessary. But is it also unsafe?
An average of 579 passwords are hacked every second, resulting in some 18 billion cyber attacks every year, computer experts say. Now, Microsoft has come up with a sure-fire method to prevent password hacking: doing away with them all together. Yes, please!! That’s the word from Microsoft officials, who have unveiled plans to offer a “passwordless account” option to users of the company’s subscription-based software. “You can now completely remove the password from your Microsoft account,” says Vasu Jakkal, the company’s corporate vice president of security. Instead of typing in a password, users will be able to log in with an authenticator app or with Windows Hello, which uses facial recognition, a fingerprint, or a pin, Jakkal says.
This sounds 100% more convenient. I’ll be honest I use Apple products mainly and when I can connect something to facial recognition it’s so much easier. You have to make passwords so complex and different these days, it’s almost impossible to even remember what the requirements are. I wish when you incorrectly answer it would tell you if they required numbers, symbols, or capital letters. I’d usually be able to figure it out from there.
Is this enough to make me switch from Apple? I’m not sure. I like the integration all my devices have, and luckily most of my passwords are saved. Using FaceID with them helps a lot as well. But if this is as good as it seems and easy to use I could be persuaded. The no passwords feature is definitely a benefit to Microsoft.
