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Windows 10 Update Will Support More Password-Free Logins (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader writes: It's not just web browsers that are moving beyond passwords. Microsoft has revealed that Windows 10's next update will support the new FIDO 2.0 standard, promising password-free logins on any Windows 10 device managed by your company or office. You could previously use Windows Hello to avoid typing in a password, of course, but this promises to be more extensive -- you could use a USB security key to sign into your Azure Active Directory.
For the average home user that reuses passwords with names and birthdays or simple repeated phrases it is a massive security improvement. For someone that understands the consequences of bad password management, password strength and reuse it is a decrease. The reality is for decades we have all tried to teach password health and for decades users have failed to learn, not sure if it is us IT people to blame or the users, either way it means passwords are very very weak security for a large percentage of the population.
You think your random 64-characters password is safe?
Not just the number of random characters... I've recently found a few websites that ignore password case altogether so it would be even easier to brute force a password now than it should be. I would hope that they look for brute force attacks but since they go so far as to ignore password case I wouldn't be so sure.
I'm looking at you americanexpress.com