Windows 8 Picture Password

Picture Password is the latest feature in Windows 8 Operating System. But What is this Picture Password? What is the use of this new Password Management Tool in Windows 8?

Days are gone where we have to manually type passwords, remember those passwords which are very difficult to memorize when we change them frequently. For security reasons we include special symbols, digits and what not in our password.

Windows 8 introduced an innovative way to login to your computer. Picture Password, the all new password management tool from Windows 8. All we need to do is to record some gesture on the picture and it will be saved as the password to login to the system. Generally it is easy to memorize the gesture compared to the complex passwords.

Even bruteforce attack can not crack this kind of gesture used for password. Microsoft says “Picture Password is a new way to help you protect your touchscreen PC”.

We can choose our own picture and create gestures for password. It is uniquely ours. Once the picture is selected, draw different combinations of circles, straight lines,  taps. The size, position and the direction of your gestures become part of your picture password.

Here is the sample image with my own gestures:

 

Hacker’s eyes 

But there is a small demerit in this method. If someone observes your gesture then it is easy for them to grasp. We can type a password very faster but gestures we cant draw faster. So ensure noone watches you while you draw your gesture to sign-in to your system.

Smudges

One more threat is if the screen is not so clear and if there is dust on the screen then the hacker can easily identify the gesture by identifying the smudges on the screen.  So ensure that the screen is pretty clear or atleast make sure that there are no smudges after you enter the gestures as password.