Newsletter Archives

• Microsoft adopts passkeys in Windows 11 — death to passwords!

  Posted on November 20, 2023 at 02:44 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  When Microsoft enhanced Windows 11 in a September 2023 update to support “passkeys” — a more secure form of authentication — it signaled the beginning of the end for insecure and hard-to-remember passwords.

  To create a passkey, you simply use whatever method unlocks your devices: a character-based PIN, your face, a fingerprint, or what have you. You then visit any website or other remote service that’s passkey-compatible. The server exchanges with your device an “authentication token.” This uniquely identifies you and the device you are using to sign in.

  The token is a private/public key pair. Your PIN, photo, or fingerprint is never sent across the network, where it could be intercepted by man-in-the-middle attacks.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.47.0, 2023-11-20).

  Public Defender FIDO, FIDO2, Newsletters, Passkeys, Passwords, PINs, W3C, Windows Hello

• The Windows 10/11 Hello PIN works, but change is coming

  Posted on November 13, 2023 at 02:45 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 20.46 • 2023-11-13

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  A new Microsoft sign-in method — designed to replace today’s relatively insecure usernames and passwords — was introduced to Windows 10 in July 2015.

  The technology is called Windows Hello. It involves your entering a PIN, which can be up to 127 characters long including numbers, letters, and symbols. This PIN is associated with a device of yours: a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop computer, etc. Once you use your PIN with a Microsoft Account, an Active Directory, or other services that recognize the technique, you never have to enter a username or password on that connection again.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.46.0, 2023-11-13).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Public Defender KB5030310, Newsletters, Passkeys, Passwords, PINs, Windows Hello

• Are you using Windows Hello?

  Posted on December 20, 2020 at 11:55 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  • The number of consumers using Windows Hello to sign in to Windows 10 devices instead of a password grew to 84.7 percent from 69.4 percent in 2019.

  From https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/12/17/a-breakthrough-year-for-passwordless-technology/

  Hmmmm….. so I have a couple of computers that demanded that I set up a PIN and then I flipped it back to password.  For sure 84.7 percent of us do not have the hardware to support biometric process.  Given the amount of posts I’ve seen about “how do I get rid of the PIN“, I’m not convinced that 84.7 percent of us CHOSE the PIN process willingly.  Rather a feature update was installed, realized that our computers could handle a PIN enablement and walked us through that.

  What do you think?  Do you think 85% of us use Windows Hello?

  Windows 10 Patch Lady Posts, Windows Hello

• New Surface Pro 4 driver “Surface – System – 1.0.75.1” fixes the Windows Hello bug

  Posted on August 4, 2017 at 04:58 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  The buggy “Surface – System – 7/21/2017 12:00:00 AM – 1.0.65.1” driver, pushed through Automatic Update earlier this week, was never documented

  Computerworld Woody on Windows

  Windows Patches/Security Surface – System – 1.0.75.1, Windows Hello