Somewhere along the way, Windows started asking you to set up a PIN, and people complied without much thought, assuming it was Microsoft trying to make life easier on its end and ours. Which, to be fair, sounds about right. A four-digit number replacing a 14-character password with symbols and capital letters is the kind of “upgrade” that mostly benefits whoever’s annoyed by typing.
However, I never quite bought into it. Something about it felt a bit too relaxed, so I looked into it and found that the explanation isn’t complicated.
Your Windows Hello PIN never leaves your device
Unlike your password, which has been around the block
The word “PIN” carries a lot of baggage. Most people hear it and think of the four digits they punch into an ATM, which a shoulder surfer could swipe in two seconds. So when Microsoft says a PIN can be more secure than a password, the instinct is to raise an eyebrow. Fair enough. The problem is that the reaction is built on the wrong comparison.
A traditional password, whether for your Microsoft account or a local account, is transmitted to a server during authentication. It travels. Someone who steals your password can sign in to your account from anywhere. That’s the core vulnerability. It doesn’t matter how complex the password is if it’s sitting in a database somewhere waiting to be breached, or intercepted mid-transmission by someone paying attention on the network.
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A PIN is a faster and equally secure way of logging into your Windows PC. Here’s how to set it up.
A Windows Hello PIN doesn’t work like that at all. A PIN is local to the device in that it isn’t transmitted anywhere and isn’t stored on the server. When the PIN is created, it establishes a trusted relationship with the identity provider and creates an asymmetric key pair used for authentication. When you type your PIN, you’re not sending the PIN anywhere. You’re unlocking a cryptographic key that lives on your machine, which then signs an authentication request. The server never sees the PIN. Neither does the network. The server doesn’t have a copy of the PIN. For that matter, the Windows client doesn’t have a copy of the current PIN either.
This also means phishing doesn’t work on it. Since no passwords are used, it circumvents credential-theft methods such as brute-force attacks and phishing. You can’t trick someone into entering their Windows Hello PIN on a fake website and then replay it somewhere else. The credential is cryptographically bound to the specific device on which it was created, and it doesn’t function elsewhere. Steal the PIN all you want; without the physical machine, it’s just a number.
A dedicated security chip is doing the actual protecting
The PIN is the bouncer; the TPM is the vault
To really get why the PIN stays local, you have to look at what’s anchoring it in place. That’s the Trusted Platform Module, or TPM. The Windows Hello PIN is backed by this tiny chip, essentially a vault on your motherboard. Its job is to generate cryptographic keys, store them, and make sure nothing outside the chip can access them directly. Your key material is created and stored inside the TPM, so attackers cannot simply extract it and reuse it elsewhere. And because Windows Hello relies on asymmetric key pairs, your credentials are not stored on a server, where they could be leaked. Even if a service you use gets compromised, your login method is not part of that fallout.
There is also an important layer of brute force protection baked right into the hardware. The TPM limits the number of incorrect PIN attempts, and if you push it too far, the device locks you out. An attacker trying to brute-force a simple four-digit PIN is working against the clock, with roughly a 0.04 percent chance of getting it right before the system shuts them out completely. And this isn’t some setting you can accidentally turn off because it’s enforced at the hardware level.
Now imagine someone trying to break in the hard way. They’d need physical access to your device first. Then they’d have to either spoof your biometrics or correctly guess your PIN. And they’d have to do all of that before the TPM’s anti-hammering protection kicks in and locks everything down. That’s a steep hill to climb. Most attackers aren’t even in the same room as your laptop. And the ones who are would have to contend with hardware-backed cryptography and a ticking clock.
Not impossible, certainly, but it’s a very different game from phishing emails and leaked password databases.
There’s one caveat
It’s not a flaw — it’s just context
None of this really holds up if your device doesn’t have a TPM chip. Windows 11 makes TPM 2.0 a requirement, which neatly sidesteps the issue, but older systems like Windows 10 were a bit more permissive. They allowed PIN sign-in without that hardware backing, and that is where things start to unravel.
Without a TPM, the PIN is no longer tied to a secure piece of hardware. It becomes just a hashed value sitting in software on your system drive. At that point, a simple four to six-digit PIN is not much of a barrier. Given the right tools, it can be extracted and brute forced in a matter of minutes.
It also helps to separate how this works across account types, because the experience is not identical.
- Microsoft Accounts: The PIN functions as proper multi-factor authentication. You have the device itself, with its hardware-bound key, and then the PIN you enter to unlock it. Both are required. And because everything is tied to that specific machine, a stolen PIN is useless on its own without the physical device it belongs to.
- Local Accounts: While the PIN remains device-specific, it lacks the asymmetric-key-based protection used by Microsoft or Entra ID accounts. On an older system without a TPM, using a PIN with a local account provides almost no security benefit over a simple password; it is mostly a matter of typing fewer characters.
How to Fix “This Sign-In Option Is Disabled Because of Failed Sign-In Attempts” on Windows
Locked out of your account? Get back in with this Windows guide.
Check your TPM status in Windows
Hello, is it TMP you’re looking for?
To verify if your Windows Hello PIN is hardware-protected by a TPM, you can check the TPM status in Windows Security or use a command-line tool for a more technical confirmation.
Method 1: Check Windows Security (user-friendly)
The most direct way to see if a TPM is active and available to Windows is through the Security app. If you aren’t familiar with the menus, there are several quick ways to open the Windows Security app in Windows 11.
- Open Settings (Win + I) and go to Privacy & Security > Windows Security.
- Select Device security.
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Look for the Security processor section:
- If you see security processor details, your PIN is likely hardware-backed by a TPM.
- If you see “Standard hardware security not supported,” your system lacks a functional TPM, and your PIN is stored in software.
Method 2: TPM management console
This tool provides a quick status report on the hardware.
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Press Win + R, type
tpm.msc, and press Enter. - In the Status section, look for “The TPM is ready for use”.
- Check the Specification Version in the bottom right; Windows 11 requires version 2.0 for standard hardware protection.
Method 3: Advanced command-line check
To confirm that your specific Windows Hello key is stored in hardware (rather than just knowing a TPM exists), use this command in Command Prompt (Run as Administrator):
certutil -csp "Microsoft Passport Key Storage Provider" -key -v Look for the NgcKeyImplType (Next Generation Credentials) line in the output:
-
1 (0x1): Hardware-backed (TPM) — Secure. -
2 (0x2): Software-backed — Vulnerable to the brute-force attacks mentioned previously.
Simple on the surface; quite solid underneath
The truth is that security features tend to work exactly as advertised — under exactly the conditions they were designed for. Windows Hello’s PIN is really the safer option. It just needs the right hardware underneath it to earn that title.
Most PCs shipped in the last few years have it. Yours probably does.
