Passkey is an easy and much more secure way to log in or sign up without any passwords. Passkeys are developed by FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium in order to offer users a straightforward and interoperable infrastructure for passwordless authentication.
Passkeys - Explained!
Passkeys are cryptographic login credentials that replace the need for passwords by requiring either biometric verifications, like fingerprint scan or facial recognition or a PIN or pattern or plug-in authentications, like smart cards.
Also, passkeys replace passwords and two-factor authentication in a single step, making the user experience seamless.
Compared to password-based authentication, passkeys make it more seamless and secure for users to connect to websites and apps. In conventional password-based authentications, a password is created during registration or signup, encrypted, and stored on a server. When logging in, the user enters their password, and the server verifies it by comparing it to a stored password hash.
However, the idea of keeping user credentials on a server no longer exists with passkeys. Passkeys establish a secure and reliable authentication channel by generating cryptographic key pairs (public key and private key) that can connect the user and the respective application. With passkeys, user credentials can be verified using either,
- An in-built authenticator (eg: biometric device)
- An external or roaming authenticator (eg: mobile phones)
- An authenticator that is plugged in (eg: USB or smartcard)
Read more on Passkeys, How it works, Are they secure, Benefit of Passkeys in detail here.
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