And cybersecurity experts have said the weakest link is human behavior - our tendency to re-use the same password across accounts so it’s easy to remember, or create patterns for different passwords that are easy for hackers to guess. Hackers have even gone after password managers that aim to make login data more secure, with popular service LastPass hacked in 2015.Īccording to Microsoft, 579 password attacks take place every second, adding up to 18 billion attacks a year. Passwords can often end up for sale on the dark web, where they are bought and used to hack even more services. (Microsoft has also had its share of security issues in recent months, with its services linked to multiple high-profile hacks and breaches.) With the majority of corporate employees working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic, hackers have many more avenues to infiltrate a company’s systems - and compromising passwords is one of their most common strategies. The change from Microsoft comes after a spike in cyberattacks over the past year. (MSFT) users can also buy an external security key, like a USB drive with login information stored on it, or register a phone number to which Microsoft

(MSFT) will let users sign in to these services with either the company’s Authenticator app, which produces a unique numbered login code every few seconds, or with Windows Hello, which lets users sign in using facial recognition, a fingerprint or a unique pin. “You can now completely remove the password from your Microsoft account,” Vasu Jakkal, the company’s corporate vice president of security, compliance and identity, wrote in a blog post Wednesday. Microsoft previously made this option available to corporate accounts in March. The company announced Wednesday that it will introduce a “passwordless account” option for all users of several popular services such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft OneDrive in the coming weeks. Microsoft has a solution for the familiar problem of needing to remember too many passwords: doing away with them altogether.

Microsoft passwordless account