Microsoft tells users to re-use your old passwords and stop using strong ones

Complex, unique passwords should only be used to access highly sensitive data such as a person’s bank account, says the academic paper published by Microsoft Research, the R&D arm of the software firm. Simpler passwords should then be recycled for low-risk websites, the researchers argue.The savvy web user should make a list of the websites they regularly visit and divide them into sensitive and non-sensitive piles, the paper says, devoting as much brainpower as possible to creating complex passwords for the former and as little as possible to the latter.They add that increasingly harassed web users are turning to “coping mechanisms” to remember their growing list of passwords – even resorting to a pen and paper. “Despite violating long-standing password guidance, writing passwords down is, if properly done, increasingly accepted as a coping mechanism,” they write.“Other strategies to cope with the human impossibility of using strong passwords everywhere without re-use include single sign-on, use of email-based password reset mechanisms, and password managers.”The research was conducted by Dinei Florêncio and Cormac Herley from Microsoft Research and Paul C. van Oorschot from Carleton University in Canada.(independent.co.uk)Bakudaily.az