Passwords are just SO last year, right?? Well, according to Microsoft, passwords may just be a thing of the past soon, and they are looking to lead the way! Microsoft announced this week that they are rolling out a new feature called phone sign-in. How it works is when you go to login to your Microsoft account, it will ask you for your username or email address, and then instead of a password it will prompt your phone to allow or deny the access. When you click approve, you are automatically logged into your account.
To utilize this new service, you need to download the Microsoft Authenticator app on your iPhone or Android device (amusingly enough, it is not available in the Windows Phone version of the authenticator app). You will then add your Microsoft account to the app, and then there will be a drop-down on your account to enable phone sign-in. Currently this will only work with your Microsoft accounts such as Office 365, as Microsoft gets a feel for how widely this authentication method will be accepted.
This method does look poised to eliminate two-factor authentication, in favor of a more secure method than a simple (or complex) password to gain access to your accounts. The only issue would be that it will become increasingly more important to have a secure way to gain access to your phone. If someone were to get a hold of your phone, and you didn’t have strong enough security on your phone, you would essentially give them they keys to the kingdom for ALL of your accounts.