Security News > 2020 > May > Firefox to tell you if sites are shortening your passwords

Firefox to tell you if sites are shortening your passwords
2020-05-19 13:54

A tweak to the next version of Mozilla Firefox should fix the longstanding problem of generating a password that exceeds the maximum length allowed by a website without being alerted that this has happened.

Ultimately, it's the responsibility of websites, which impose limits on passwords without always stating what these are, coping with divergence using the blunt force of truncation.

It's been possible to use passwords between 60 and 128 characters in length with many services for some time, but not all companies flag or even encourage that.

Perhaps, behind the curtain, big Internet companies are also a bit sick of passwords.

That might explain their enthusiasm for alternative technologies such as WebAuthn, which has been supported in Firefox since version 60 in 2018, and promises to do away with passwords for good.


News URL

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2020/05/19/firefox-to-tell-you-if-sites-are-shortening-your-passwords/