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YOU PROBABLY USE emojis while texting, and even online, but would you use them in a password?
A company called Intelligent Environments has launched the world’s first emoji-only passcode, which it says is “mathematically more secure and easier to remember than traditional passcodes”.
Intelligent Environments is a UK company that was inspired by the fact that, according to a survey it undertook, a third of people in Britain had forgotten their PINs before.
Its emoji passcode means that users can log into their bank accounts using four emoji characters, rather than traditional PINs or passwords.
Here’s a video of it in action. (Can’t see the video? Click here)
Intelligent Environments / Vimeo
You can choose from a bank of 44 emojis. While traditional PINs have 7,290 unique permutations of four non-repeating numbers, with an emoji passcode you get a whopping 3,498,308 million unique permutations of non-repeating emojis.
The emoji passcode is also something that came about thanks to younger customers, with Intelligent Environments saying that “the younger generation is communicating in new ways”, with millennials particularly fond of emojis.
However, NPR spoke to a professor at Carnegie Mellon who’s an expert on cybersecurity and passwords, Lorrie Cranor, who said it was “fun” but she is “not sure it’s a big breakthrough” or more secure than traditional PINs.
Would you use an emoji passcode?
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I forgot to mention that i Got the above Emoji from my bank when i signed in.
I’m guessing all those inviable comments contain apple only emojii, highlighting the problem with emoji passwords. good luck trying to access your bank account from a web cafe in Thailand with that level of security! ;-)
There is absolutely nothing new about this. 5 years ago, my son was using emojis/symbols as a password to an online web game (I think it was Find my Monster). As the game was aimed at kids of an age with only basic literacy skills, this was great.
This is the closest poll in the history of the journal
As blistering irritating as I find those things, it’s technically no more of less safe depending on the number of options given as possibilities.
Easy to guess if ya try and crack my bank account. All sad faces!
xkcd explains how to create a secure, memorable password using simple, common words that’s more effective than the case-switching, number-substituting hoops most websites force you through.
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