The Members Forum

No more '123456' passwords for Hotmail users

Scratch "123456" and "password" as your Hotmail password choices. They're not going to work anymore, says Microsoft, which says it is going to forbid users of the email program from choosing such passwords in an attempt to bolster security.

"We will now prevent our customers from using one of several common passwords" to prevent email accounts from being hijacked, wrote Dick Craddock, Hotmail group program manager, on a Microsoft blog.