There are many bad security practices that compromise us, one of the most important being saving passwords. Microsoft is working to improve user security and has introduced its own lockdown system. The Windows 11 22H2 update will prevent you from saving your passwords in Notepad by showing you an on-screen security prompt.
Having weak passwords, repeating them on multiple sites or saving them on your computer are very bad practices. It is also not recommended to store passwords in the browser. Although it may seem difficult and cumbersome, the ideal is to create a secure password that we can cut and one for each service that we use.
You won’t be able to save your passwords in Notepad
Recently Microsoft has released the Windows 11 22H2 update , which brings many new features. Days after his arrival, we are still discovering some of his novelties. One of the most important is an additional protection system based on the company’s own antivirus.
Microsoft Defender SmartScreen technology , built into the Windows Defender system, has been included. The idea of this feature is to protect users by preventing us from saving passwords in Notepad.
Storing passwords in a document, believe it or not, is an extremely common practice. This practice, of course, is not recommended for security. Now Windows 11 will notify us when we save passwords in the text editors of Notepad, WordPad, Word or OneNote.
Although the idea is very good, the truth is that its integration is quite limited. The warning will only skip if the password that we enter in a text editor is the same as the Windows 11 login . Unfortunately, alternate passwords will not be detected.
The Windows 11 anti-phishing system will serve to alert users if the Microsoft account password is entered on a suspicious website. It will also happen in third-party applications that can be dangerous.
Windows 11 Phishing Protection has additional layers of security. It will ask us to change the login password if we use it on a website or service. It is recommended to have separate passwords to prevent our Microsoft account from being compromised.
How to enable this security feature
It seems that this feature would not be quite polished and after updating Windows 11 22H2, the feature is not active. Those who want to activate it for security, it is possible to do it in a simple way. The process is the following:
- In the Windows 11 taskbar , on the right side we will see a little arrow and if we put the mouse over it it will tell us Show hidden icons
- Click on this arrow and now click on Windows Security
- A window opens and here we must look for the Application and browser control
- We have to look for the Reputation-based Protection option and here we must click on Reputation- based Protection Configuration
- We look for the Protection against Phishing section and select the options Warn me about password reuse and, in addition, Warn me about insecure password storage
- We already have this function activated and we close
As you can see, activating this function is very easy and it will help us protect ourselves against attacks. It is possible that this feature will be expanded and improved in the future, detecting other passwords, which would be great.