Microsoft stops password support; what you need to do

Plus – a business horror story involving Uber and a phone

Author

David Radin
July 01, 2025

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“Passwords are like underwear: you don’t let people see it, you should change it very often, and you shouldn’t share it with strangers”

— Clifford Stoll

In this issue:

  1. Your password may have less than a month to live

  2. How losing a phone can be more complicated than ever

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Microsoft stops supporting passwords end of this month (and how to deal with it — same for Google and Apple)

For several years, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others have been moving to more secure solutions to hackers breaking into accounts. You’ve already had to endure long passwords, those that include strange characters, and multifactor authentication.

The latest, and frankly the most secure, is passkeys, which eliminates passwords completely. And the day is here in which you may finally be forced to move to passkeys.

Instead of making you memorize (or store) long strings of characters which are stored on the other side of your transaction where they can be forged or stolen, passkeys use your device as the single source of truth saying that you are you. Whenever you try to get into your account, the account administrator checks your known device to get positive identification – almost like the second factor in so called 2FA (2 Factor identification), but skipping the first step.

Get ready to go passwordless

Perhaps you’ve been using passkeys already. Microsoft and Google have had them in place for a while for some users and Apple has jumped on board, supporting passkeys in its recently introduced Passwords App.

Effective Aug 1 – ONE MONTH FROM TODAY – Microsoft will no longer support passwords in its Authenticator App, effectively requiring you to move to passkeys.

During the upcoming month, you might notice that your Microsoft Authenticator app will stop autofilling your passwords, making it more difficult to use them as you drag your feet into the passwordless world.

Better not to wait

I’m imagining a lot of you waiting until last minute – then going bonkers because you suddenly have to change over and learn the new method at an inopportune time – like when you absolutely have to get into your account immediately; but can’t because you’re still password based and your authenticator doesn’t work.

Do yourself a favor – make the change now… or at least in early July, so you don’t have to put up with changing to passkeys under duress.

Here are a few resources that will help you:

Oh yeah – just one more thing. It means that having your device with you is more important than ever. See the story below to find out what happens when you don’t.

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The Hell of Losing Your Phone

A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine, on vacation in Hawaii, left his phone in an Uber. You might not realize how badly that complicates your life until it happens to you. For my friend…

  • He couldn’t get into his email account on his computer which was sitting in his hotel room – because it requires multifactor authentication – where he has to accept his login by approving it with his phone.

  • He couldn’t text his family back home because he didn’t have his phone and didn’t remember any of the cell numbers or email addresses because he depended heavily on his locked contact list.

  • He couldn’t call the Uber driver because the only way to track him down was with the app – and Uber requires the app to get to their customer support

After much trying and many iterations, he was finally able to get to Uber support who helped him track down the driver and called him to see whether he found the phone.

The driver’s response… I found it right after you got out of the car and was waiting for you to contact me.

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David