Microsoft Is Banning Stupid Passwords

There’s a big problem with passwords, and it’s all down to the people who set them up in the first place. There are plenty of idiots who can never remember their passwords, and just use something so hilariously obvious they probably shouldn’t even have bothered. Microsoft is taking measure to put an end to that.

No it’s not going down the same route as Google by developing tech that will eliminate passwords (not yet, anyway). Rather than just imposing a strict set of rules on what passwords have to include (like upper case and lower case letters, numbers, special characters, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the soul of your first born) its actually creating a constantly updated list of stupid passwords that users will not be allowed to use.

That list will pull in information from sources about commonly used passwords and then stop people from using them. So the likes of ‘password’, ‘12345’, ‘guest’, and others won’t be accepted. Plus, because the list is always updating, every time people move onto another idiotically obvious password, it’ll get the ban hammer.

Microsoft claims that this measure has already been rolled out to the Microsoft Account service (which covers the likes of Outlook, Xbox Live, and OneDrive), and will add it to accounts that use the Azure log-in system. There won’t be much difference, though, and instead of calling people out on their dumb passwords, the system will simply ask them to pick something that isn’t so easy to guess.

This article originally appeared on Lifehacker UK


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