Yup, password expiration is dumb

I posted an entry a while back about passwords.  Well, turns out that Microsoft is no longer recommending rotating your passwords and is removing the password expiration policies from Windows.

So yup, I was right.

But really, what was the point of always changing your passwords anyway?  Well, I guess it does mitigate against the possibility that a re-used password has been compromised somewhere else.  But what's the cost?  Users can never remember their passwords.  And since coming up with a good, memorable password is hard, they're not going to put in the effort. Instead, they'll come up with some pattern that meets the minimum complexity requirements and just cycle through it. 

Is this better?  I'm no expert, but it's not clear to me that it is.If you want extra protection, there are better ways to get it.  For example, setting up two-factor authentication.  That's also a bit of a pain for users, but at least it provides more real protection.

And on a semi-related side-note, I'd like to point out KeepassAndroid now integrates with Firefox Mobile.  I've mentioned this app in some previous posts about KeePass.  I do a lot of my non-work web browsing on my phone these days, so this app is really a necessity for me.  This new integration is really nice because it means I can now get the same user experience on both my laptop and my phone.  I just tap on the login box and get promoted to auto-fill the form.  Perfect!

You can reply to this entry by leaving a comment below. This entry accepts Pingbacks from other blogs. You can follow comments on this entry by subscribing to the RSS feed.

Add your comments #

A comment body is required. No HTML code allowed. URLs starting with http:// or ftp:// will be automatically converted to hyperlinks.