“We still see passwords as a major risk” to companies

Microsoft (MSFT) To get rid of passwords, which one senior executive described as a “inherent risk” for security.

As part of its annual Ignite conference, the tech giant announced on Tuesday that it will begin allowing business customers who use Azure Active Directory, Microsoft’s cloud-based authentication platform, to forgo biometrics passwords to secure business accounts.

“When there are passwords, there are inherent risks to the organization,” Vasu Jakal, Microsoft’s vice president for security, compliance and identity marketing, told Yahoo Finance.

“We still see passwords as a huge risk to organizations,” Jackal said. The average email address is linked [with] I believe more than 100 accounts are now. This means that every time one email address is hacked, you are putting all of these accounts at risk. “

Microsoft plans to allow business users to log into their corporate accounts instead using facial recognition software like Windows Hello for Business, fingerprint scanners, the Microsoft Authenticator app, or the FIDO 2 (Quick Identity Online) option like a physical USB key.

Jakkal notes that users need to type in or store passwords online to remember them, which in itself is a security issue. Moreover, attackers can use methods such as password sprinkling in hopes of reaching the correct combination and breaking into user profiles.

Hackers can also exploit users who have one password on multiple accounts.

We hope that the “no password” feature will become the norm.

Microsoft is not the only organization that provides such services without a password. Amazon)AMZNAWS, Microsoft’s leading competitor to the cloud, has a similar offering to its Amazon Cognito authentication platform. But Microsoft appears to be dedicated to getting rid of passwords for all users.

“It’s a long journey, but we hope the password-free feature will become the norm,” Jackal said. “It’s a safer way to do things, and so the more we can all embrace it I think we can protect ourselves and our organizations more.”

The story continues

In addition to getting rid of passwords, Microsoft announced that it will begin offering its security services to customers using multiple cloud platforms. In other words, if your company owns Microsoft Azure in addition to Amazon’s AWS or Google (The GoogleAnd the The Google) Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft’s security applications will run on its Azure service, as well as with AWS and GCP.

The idea is to make security simpler and less difficult, requiring IT professionals to manage multiple applications to keep their organizations safe from attackers.

Microsoft made security a bigger part of the company’s story recently. In January CEO Satya Nadella said Yahoo Finance that there is a “major crisis at the moment.”On Cybersecurity. He spoke to Yahoo Finance a month after the massive infiltration of government agencies and companies involving the software company SolarWinds.

This incident saw suspected Russian hackers breach software updates for SolarWinds network monitoring tools. This hack allowed the attackers to infiltrate the systems of major government organizations including the Treasury Department.

Microsoft, which Nadella says has made $ 10 billion in profits from security products in the past 12 months, has helped investigators identify victims and quantify the breach. “I was so proud that we became the first to respond to this attack,” Jackal told Yahoo Finance in January. “We were the defenders that the other defenders were turning to.”

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