Microsoft and Other Tech Giants to Offer Universal Passwordless Login

Microsoft, Google, and Apple come together in a commitment to make universal passwordless login possible in the near future.

By     Merc

May 5th was World Password Day, and the FIDO Alliance celebrated it with the announcement of Microsoft, Google, and Apple’s plans to move towards a universal sign-in method without the use of passwords in the coming year.

This means users can sign in using passwordless authentication to any of the major platforms these companies have regardless of operating system, browser, or desktop environments.

According to the FIDO Alliance, the use of passwords alone as authentication is “one of the biggest security problems in the web.” Because users have to manage a lot of different passwords for different platforms or websites, they tend to use the same ones, and eventually most people become victims of identity theft, account takeovers, and data breaches.

With a passwordless login, users can sign in to different services by simply unlocking their phones using a PIN, a pattern, or even biometrics such as facial/fingerprint recognition. This will be possible through the use of a “passkey” which is a unique cryptographic token that is shared between the phone and the website.

The FIDO Alliance and these tech giants are working together to make passwordless authentication possible either by this year, or in 2023 according to FIDO Alliance President and Google PM Director for Secure Authentication, Sampath Srinivas who confirmed this through The Verge:

“When passkey support becomes available across the industry in 2022 and 2023, we’ll finally have the internet platform for a truly passwordless future.”

We can expect more details about this in the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference which will take place on June 6-10.

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