Security News > 2023 > May > Go ahead, forget that password. Use a passkey instead, says Google

Google wants to take us further into a passwordless future by allowing personal account holders to login using passkeys rather than using passphrases and multifactor authentication.

Passkeys are being adopted by the likes of Apple and Microsoft, which, like Google, have long been vocal about the need to do away with passwords entirely, replacing them and MFA with passkeys.

Apple's iOS 16 and macOS Ventura support passkeys and Google late last year began to support passkeys for Chrome on Android, Windows, and macOS. Microsoft is also moving toward passkeys.

In November 2022, password manager company 1Password bought passkey startup Passage "To help accelerate the adoption of passkeys for developers, businesses, and their customers," CEO Jeff Shiner said at the time.

Passkeys can be created for other devices such as PCs, laptops, or tablets, and some platforms will back up passkeys and sync them to other devices.

For Google Account holders, existing verification methods - including passwords and MFA - will still work, just in case they're using devices that don't yet support passkeys.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/05/04/google_passkey/