Windows 10 Password Question

[Mr Turtle]

So I log into my Microsoft account in order to access my computer. If someone were to hack my account and change the password, would I still be able to access my computer somehow? Will they be able to access my computer remotely?

 

[Barty1884]

1. Only by resetting your password via whichever email address you configured your MS account.

2. It's unlikely. They'd need to physically grant access from the machine to remote in AFAIK.

 

[why_wolf]

pro tip activate 2-factor authentication on your Microsoft account.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12408/microsoft-account-about-two-step-verification

 

[Mr Turtle]

pro tip activate 2-factor authentication on your Microsoft account.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12408/microsoft-account-about-two-step-verification

Im not asking about how to prevent hacking or anything of that nature. Im asking if I can still log into my computer if I didnt have the password to my Microsoft account?

 

[johnbl]

-you could still log on to your computer using a local account stored in the SAM database on your local computer even if your primary Microsoft credentials were modified.

- you could contact Microsoft and regain access to your Microsoft account and thus regain access to your local computer.

- if you know your Microsoft account password was changed, you could unplug your local computer from the network and use the cached credentials to log on to the local computer. (assumes the computer never attempted to validate credentials since the time of the password changed)


generally, remote access to the computer would take some effort. It could be done, but would require some configuration changes on your local machine before the remote access would be possible. for example, someone could figure out your Microsoft account password, add a logon script. Then let you log on your local machine with your account, run the script to make the changes needed for remote logon, send the proper info to a third party then take full control of your machine and lock you out. It does take a effort and someone would really have to want to target your specific machine. Changing a password is just a simple way to mess with you and not a good way to steal info from a machine. (you would just turn off the machine when you know the password has been hacked, then call Microsoft to reset your network password and turn your machine back on)