Get rid of the password and see how Windows 8 protects your digital identity

When developing Windows 8, Microsoft faces an important challenge: how to help users manage your data identity, and in a convenient and secure way.

Currently, one of the main ways for people to verify their digital identities is by using passwords.

, Use the password to log on to the computer, bank, network service, and so on. Microsoft Research found that in the United States, each PC user has about 25 online accounts, and these accounts have only 6 independent passwords, that is to say, everyone will often use the same password to log on to different accounts.

On the one hand, it is easy to understand that it is hard to remember a large number of different passwords, especially some accounts that are not commonly used. However, password reuse is very popular for hackers. If they can crack your password from a website, it means they are likely to use this password to log on to your other account, saving a lot of effort. What's more, they can use your personal information to reset the passwords of other accounts.

Obviously, the current user name + password mechanism is not very secure. Microsoft hopes to provide a smooth, easy, and secure Web experience, but remembering a long and complex string of passwords makes the network experience inactive, and using a short password is insecure. The ideal solution is to find a way for you to easily and securely use all digital identities.

Microsoft believes that there are two basic methods to address this challenge. First, let Windows help you manage your password

. If you use complex and independent passwords when accessing every website, you do not need to remember these passwords, it is much safer than a simple password that is easier to remember than you can use, and it is hard for hackers to get started.

Method 2Yes. Use another password to protect your identity.

There are many alternatives to passwords, such as OTP one-time passwords), certificates, and smart cards. Although these technologies have been around for a long time, they have not been accepted by the public. One of the main reasons is that they are not easy to use and are not as convenient as passwords.

In Windows 8, Microsoft provides a mechanism for securely storing user names/passwords, and introduces a technology that supports alternative authentication. These can help users enhance password security and use the latest and most powerful technology to protect your digital identity.

Password disadvantage

Attackers can use many methods to obtain your password. The most common ones are:

-Phishing: Send malicious emails, mislead users to click links, reset passwords, etc;

-Speculation: Making guesses based on user habits and personal information;

-Technical cracking: Attackers can download some data from the Internet, usually hash values of passwords) to crack your password;

-Keyboard recordIf attackers can install a keyboard recorder on your machine, they can steal your username and password.

Improve password security and availability

You can use many methods to protect your password from the above attacks. The most important thing is to keep your PC secure and clean at all times to ensure no malware. Windows 8 includes a series of protection functions, such as SecureBoot, SmartScreen, and WindowsDefender.

However, some attacks, such as guesses, rely solely on password strength, so you need to set a complex password for each account.

Windows 8 simplifies the difficulty of managing complex passwords in two ways.

First,It automatically stores and retrieves multiple user names and passwords of the websites you visit and applications you use. Of course, this is a protected method.

IE10 uses a certificate to store the user name and password of the website you are visiting. In addition, any developer can use an API to securely store and retrieve certificates when developing Metro-style applications.

Windows 8 allows you to store and manage all logon Certifications

Second,Use WindowsLiveID to log on to Windows 8. The advantage of this is that after you log on to Windows 8 with a WindowsLiveID, You can synchronize the authentication that you store on all "trusted" Windows 8 computers.

After you use Windows liveid to log on to Windows and store the relevant authentication, Windows 8 will automatically submit the certificate in your name, without the need to remember these complex passwords. If you want to view these passwords, you can view them in the authentication manager of any trusted PC.

Create a simple password alternative

Although it is not easy for attackers to guess or crack complex passwords, they may suffer phishing attacks or key records. However, there are also many alternatives to prevent such attacks.

One is the public/private key group keypairs). Although this technology is common, it still cannot replace the traditional Password Logon. Why? The main reason is that the powerful protection of a private key requires special hardware, such as the hardware security module HSMs) and smart cards, which are usually inconvenient to use.

However, some new features of Windows 8 allow users and application developers to easily use the public/private key technology. Windows8 uses a new key storage provider KeyStorageProvider, KSP), which is very useful for banking or commercial applications because it provides a very powerful protection, this protects users from common identity attacks on the Internet.

When developing Windows 8, Microsoft faces an important challenge: how to help users manage your data identity, and in a convenient and secure way.

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