Apple, Google, and Microsoft working together to make passwordless sign-ins easier

Apple, Google, and Microsoft have expanded their support for a common passwordless sign-in standard developed by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. The new capability will allow websites and apps to offer consistent, secure, and accessible passwordless sign-ins to billions of consumers across devices and platforms. The unique ability will likely become available on Apple, Google, and Microsoft platforms by next year.

FIDO Alliance (Fast IDentity Online) was started in July 2012 to fix the issues users face with creating and remembering numerous usernames and passwords.

“Password-only authentication is one of the biggest security problems on the web. Managing so many passwords is cumbersome for consumers, leading consumers to reuse the same ones across services. This practice can lead to costly account takeovers, data breaches, and even stolen identities. While password managers and legacy forms of two-factor authentication offer incremental improvements, there has been industry-wide collaboration to create sign-in technology that is more convenient and more secure.

“The expanded standards-based capabilities will give websites and apps the ability to offer an end-to-end passwordless option. Users will sign in through the same action they take multiple times each day to unlock their devices, such as simply verifying their fingerprint or face or a device PIN. This new approach protects against phishing, and sign-in will be radically more secure when compared to passwords and legacy multi-factor technologies such as one-time passcodes sent over SMS,” FIDO Alliance released a statement.

EXPANSION SUPPORT

Apple, Google, and Microsoft already support FIDO Alliance standards to enable passwordless sign-in on industry-leading devices. However, previous implementations required users to sign in to each website or app with each device before they could use passwordless functionality.

SEAMLESS AND SECURE PASSWORDLESS SIGN-INS

• It will allow users to automatically access their FIDO sign-in credentials (referred to by some as a “passkey”) on their devices, even new ones, without re-enrolling every account.
• It will enable users to use FIDO authentication on their mobile device to sign in to an app or website on a nearby device, regardless of the OS platform or browser they are running.

“‘Simpler, stronger authentication’ is not just FIDO Alliance’s tagline — it also has been a guiding principle for our specifications and deployment guidelines. Ubiquity and usability are critical to seeing multi-factor authentication adopted at scale. We applaud Apple, Google, and Microsoft for helping make this objective reality by committing to support this user-friendly innovation in their platforms and products,” said Andrew Shikiar, executive director and CMO of the FIDO Alliance.

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