Yahoo Wants To Do Away With Traditional Passwords

Passwords can be guessed and they can be hacked, which is why more companies are turning to two-factor authentication as a means to increase security to websites and services. However despite two-factor authentication being one of the ways of remaining secure, Yahoo thinks that they have a better way which is by creating “on demand” passwords.

This was revealed during SXSW where the feature is actually rather simple and straightforward. Basically whenever you need to log into a website, instead of being greeted by a password box, you can expect to see a “send my password” button. From there a password will be sent to your phone and you can then use that password to login. Subsequent logins will require news passwords meaning that your password will never be the same.

Sounds safe, right? However there is a downside and that is if the hacker were to be able to steal your phone, then they would be able to request for the password to log into your account. Losing your phone or if your phone is dead would also render users unable to log into their accounts as well which is rather inconvenient.

The “on demand” password feature has been rolled out to US users so if you have a Yahoo account and you’re in the US, perhaps you could give this feature a try and see if you prefer it over traditional passwords. We should note that Yahoo already offers two-factor authentication to its users which can be enabled in the settings, so if this doesn’t work for you then perhaps that could be another security feature worth checking out.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Web
Tags: Security, Yahoo