Microsoft account "security intrusion" BS

Life Technology
1

I’m getting this security intrusion BS every month or so. It then locks you out of your account and forces you to change it. Then another month or two passes and this crap happens again.

Oh I should mention you can’t use your old password, it won’t let you. You have to cycle through password changes like 6 times or so before you can reuse an old password (they only have so much memory after all).

If this is happening every few months obviously someone got ways of getting your password, and making you change your password to some weird random character isn’t going to make it more secure, it’s just going to make it more likely that you will forget your password and will have to go through a bunch of crap with automated AI powered customer service to get access to your account. If somehow a spyware can get your password then changing it to something else isn’t going to help.

Why are they doing this?

2

Should be able to chat online with MS help desk if have legal Microsoft software (i.e., paid) on laptop or PC. I have when I had a question to answer.

3

That’s not normal, so you might look into the issue, rather than chalk it up to being b.s. What’s the actual messages you’re getting?

Because it thinks there is something going on with your system and they’re trying to get you to address it.

2 Likes
4

Well it would seem my computer might have spyware where it can somehow steal password off you. Or something. The problem is Microsoft making you change your passwords like this. Talking to customer service isn’t going to work.

And no matter what there’s always going to be spyware on your computer or phone.

I also believe the problem is triggered if someone enters your username but puts in the wrong password more than a certain number of times. It thinks someone is trying to break in so it forces a password change and logs you out of all devices.

What can customer service do about this? It’s Microsoft policy.

Basically if I want to be a dick I could just find out your Microsoft account user name and try to login a bunch of times with the wrong password. And repeat this daily.

5

Microsoft sucks anyway… It puts legit work-related emails that I’ve interacted with many times in spam (which I don’t think anybody in their right mind would have 7 conversations go back and forth with a spammer), then puts obvious spam/phishing attempts in my inbox and rings my notifications.

Once I get my tax forms from my previous job (their secretary is not the best at being on the up-and-up so I’m not taking any chances), my Hotmail account is getting a retirement.

6

Well if you use windows or have xbox game pass, you have no choice. It’s all tied to your microsoft account.

7

Eh, I’m team PlayStation, and my computer uses a local offline account since it doesn’t have anything worth having a glorified Azure Active Directory account over, and the only thing it realistically does is share analytics with them for you to get pestered with more targeted ads (that’s if I even allow them in the first place anyway).

For the few things that still mandate an M$ account (although I honestly can’t remember when was the last time I did use it), I just use my Gmail account as a login.

8

The problem seems to be you have spyware or something.

not really.

So what’s the actual error message you get?

9

I get the ‘account problem’ message from Microsoft a lot on one computer. Just type in the password and off I go. No issues.