Microsoft has confirmed plans to delete passwords for a billion users. “The password era is ending,” it says, warning those users that “bad acto

Microsoft Confirms Password Deletion For 1 Billion Users—Attacks Up 200%

submited by

Style Pass

2024-12-14 00:30:04

Microsoft has confirmed plans to delete passwords for a billion users. “The password era is ending,” it says, warning those users that “bad actors know it, which is why they’re desperately accelerating password-related attacks while they still can.”

The company now “blocks 7,000 attacks on passwords per second… almost double from a year ago.” It has also seen adversary-in-the-middle phishing attacks increase by 146% year over year.” All of which is bad news. But there’s good news to come, it says, “we’ve never had a better solution to these pervasive attacks: passkeys.”

In a blogpost published on Thursday, Microsoft sets out the ways in which it plans to “convince a billion users to love passkeys,” through insightful design. “Passkeys not only offer an improved user experience by letting you sign in faster with your face, fingerprint, or PIN, but they also aren’t susceptible to the same kinds of attacks as passwords. Plus, passkeys eliminate forgotten passwords and one-time codes.”

Passkeys have been accelerating in adoption this year. “In the two years since passkeys were announced and made available for consumer use, the FIDO Alliance reported a few weeks ago, “passkey awareness has risen by 50%, from 39% familiar in 2022 to 57% in 2024.”