Microsoft Password Research Looks to Images, Not Text

Researchers at Microsoft Corp. are working on new types of passwords that will be easier for people to remember but harder for hackers to crack.

The key -- images, which tend to make more of an impression on people than strings of text characters.

Darko Kirovski, a cryptography and anti-piracy researcher at Microsoft, demonstrated a prototype password system at Microsoft offices in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday.

On a screen full of images of different country flags, he clicked on a number of points within the images that correspond to specific pixels. The series of pixels is then converted into a random number and stored in the computer, he said.

Users simply remember exactly where on the images they clicked and in what order.

News source: Yahoo! News - Microsoft Password Research Looks to Images, Not Text