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from the we-are-really-security-conscious dept.
According to The Register Microsoft plans to enable their WIFI Sense feature on all versions of Windows 10 by default.
WIFI Sense has been lurking on Windows Phones since version 8.1.
A Windows 10 feature, Wi-Fi Sense, smells like a significant security risk: it shares access to password-protected Wi-Fi networks with the user's contacts. So giving a wireless password to one person grants access to everyone who knows them. That includes their Outlook.com (nee Hotmail) contacts, Skype contacts and, with an opt-in, their Facebook friends.
With every laptop running Windows 10 in the business radiating access, the security risk is significant. A second issue is that by giving Wi-Fi Sense access to your Facebook contacts, you are giving Microsoft a list of your Facebook friends, as well as your wireless passwords.
Microsoft offers a totally ridiculous workaround: you can simply add _optout to the SSID to prevent it from working with WiFi Sense.
Microsoft's page on WIFI Sense hasn't yet made it clear that every Windows 10 computer using WIFI will have the feature on by default. But that page does also include this little gem:
Wi-Fi Sense uses your location to identify open networks near you that it knows about by crowdsourcing.
Where are the lawyers when you need them?
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by skater on Wednesday July 01 2015, @11:12AM
Yikes. At work, our network password is also required to log into the Wifi, and it's saved in the settings on the device (I'm not sure what the setup is we use to log in, because I haven't done it in a while, but it's not simple WPA or anything like that - we need our network username and password). So with this sharing, someone would have my network password (if I used Windows 10/8.1 for mobile). Please backpedal on this, Microsoft, before Security decides we need yet another different 12 character password.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:40PM
You password is only 12 characters long?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by skater on Wednesday July 01 2015, @11:22PM
What does your question have to do with the article? If Microsoft does this, it won't matter how long anyone's password is.