This means that a hacker may be able to get into multiple accounts owned by a user by just figuring out their password for a single website or platform. Even worse, choosing simple passwords (think "abc123" or "password") creates the perfect target for hackers to easily access individuals' accounts. Gaining access to the key is much more difficult, since hackers need to access both the public key on the application as well as the private key on the user's device to be able to get into their account.Ī major issue with passwords is that humans tend to use the same or very similar phrases for their passwords across multiple platforms to make them easier to remember, and they often contain personal information. The mutual authentication that occurs as the server authenticates the user makes them less prone to cybersecurity attacks. They provide individual authentication for every user to every application - each challenge sent by the server is a new challenge, making the encryption different every time. Avoiding human error, and hackersįrom a safety standpoint, passkeys are much more secure than passwords for a number of reasons. A mathematical relationship between the public key on the system the user is logging into as well as the private key on the user's personal device allows the system to verify that the only person logging into the account is the one with the private key. When someone logs into an account with a passkey, a prompt, also called a challenge, is sent to an additional device owned by the user, such as their phone, that allows them to approve their login through entering some type of PIN or using biometrics like their fingerprint or a face scan.
Using a passkey allows an individual to gain access to an account by approving the login on an external device, with no password required.
"Passkeys are an example of what security should be: seamless and invisible to the end user," said Moriarty.
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