Yahoo! logos are seen at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center January 8, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo : Getty Images/David Paul Morris)
Yahoo announced the new Yahoo Account Key service for Yahoo Mail app on both iOS and Android to verify identities as opposed to traditional passwords.
The service works in a way that whenever users sign up for Account Key to access Yahoo Mail, they will no longer have to enter passwords, according to NDTV. Instead, the service sends a message to the smartphone connected to the respective account.
The user only needs to tap yes or no to indicate whether the attempt is legitimate to get into the account of deny unauthorized access. In the event of a lost smartphone, users can verify identities through an email or a text message sent to alternative numbers and accounts.
Through a blog post on Yahoo's Tumblr page, product management vice president, Dylan Casey said that Account Key is more secure as compared to the conventional passwords because it hinders anyone from signing in to access an account without the verification provided by the service.
A security manager with Symantec, Satnam Narang, referred to the approach as "a step above a password," but still expressed concerns with its failure of the golden standard of the two-factor authentication that requires users to confirm their identity with two different pieces of information.
He also expressed concerns about the service infiltrating password usage until a new verification method replaces them for good.
According to Tech Times, Narang said, "I think passwords are going to be around for a little while, I don't think they're going away as soon as we'd like them to. They're so ingrained in everything we do from banking to email to shopping, you name it."
Apart from the Account key verification, Yahoo executives announced a redesigned version of yahoo Mail, which allows users to connect, manage, and search Outlook, Hotmail and AOL email accounts while signed into their Yahoo accounts.
