New Security Features Added To Microsoft Accounts

Microsoft added the two-factor authentication feature back in April that requires a smartphone code generator app such as Authenticator in order to access sensitive information on your account, and it appears that it will add even more security features to its platform.

One of the features being added is the ability to see recent activity. Users will now be able to see recent sign-ins as well as other account activity, such as recent password changes. The recent activity screen will display information such as successful and unsuccessful sign-in attempts, addition and deletion of security information and more. For each type of activity, a Bing map will be shown that will reveal the location from where the request came from as well as what device and browser was used to make the request.

The recovery codes feature is basically a fail-safe designed to safeguard users in the rare event that they lose security information provided as part of two factor authentication. It usually includes phone number and email address, and if for some reason the user loses access to both of them, recovery code has been designed to regain access to the Microsoft account. Users can only add one recovery code per account, adding a new one will cancel the previous one. Last but not the least, Microsoft accounts now provide more control over security notifications.

Users now have the ability to choose where they would like to receive them, such as password reset notifications. The new security features will be available for all Microsoft account users over the next few days.

Thank you Ubergizmo for providing us with this information