i don’t understand this, they are both equally important, so why use a less secure unlock on one?
In: 5
Computer scientist here.
A computer is a much more “open” device than your phone. You have much more ways to interact with your PC. It is very easy to run other software if you have access to the computer. Just plug in an USB Stick and run an alternative operating system with some software.
If your hardware isn’t encrypted, this software can get the hash that you use for authentication (for example on a windows 10 machine). The hash by itself doesn’t allow for authentication, but you can check if a password is correct by comparing it to the hash if you apply the same hashing methods that windows did. A 4 digit password only allows for 10⁴ = 10000 different variations. This would be easily solvable in a second by most processors. At this point, your PIN would be compromised already and the attacker would have full access to your account on the computer.
For phones, this is harder. New phones are generally encrypted by default and have a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) that can detect malicious attempts and won’t allow any attacks. New PCs have them as well but it’s not everywhere yet.
If you activate Bitlocker and use a TPM, you would be safer like on a phone. But this isn’t activated by default so Windows should recommend you to use a strong password just to be safe.
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