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Yahoo has launched a new service called ‘on-demand’ passwords that hopes to make logging into your account significantly more secure.
Traditionally, passwords are a static input that can easily be cracked. That’s because they rarely change, and they’re often limited by the predictability of human nature.
Yahoo instead wants to randomly generate passwords that expire over time, meaning you won’t actually have a fixed password, as reported by Cnet.
Instead, when you want to log onto your e-mail account, you’ll be greeted with a ‘send my password’ button.
Hit that and Yahoo then texts a four-character passcode to your phone, which you can then enter to access your e-mails.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s not entirely new; expiring passwords are common protocol in two-factor authentication.
Where this differs, however, is that Yahoo’s method is one-factor authentication, since it skips over the password part.
That means that it’s more secure than a standard password, but not so locked down as two-factor authentication.
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Dylan Casey, Yahoo’s VP of product management for consumer platforms, said: “This is the first step to eliminating passwords.”
“I don’t think we as an industry has done a good enough job of putting ourselves in the shoes of the people using our products.”
Cyber security is currently a hot topic, which is bad news for passwords. That's because they're notorious for being one of the least secure methods of logging in to a service.
New methods of authentication like biometrics and two-step log-ins are likely replacements for passwords across the board in years to come.
