With your password, an attacker may have a lot of room to steal your password. A data breach may expose your password, and even if it is encrypted, it may break. Phishing schemes are attacks for hackers who want to steal passwords. And if you use a service with spot security practices, you can expose your password as plain text in violation; Dozens of examples This has happened before.
Passkeys vs. 2FA and MFA
Passkeys are tricky because they face security practices that have been around for years (i.e., two-factor (2FA) or multi-factor authentication (MFA). While you don’t need to insert code from text or copy something from an authenticator application, Passkeys inherently uses multi-factor authentication. It happens so quickly that it’s easy to miss.
MFA is designed to add additional layers of protection beyond the password. For example, you need not only your password, but also your code to text you. Passkeys already works this way. You need to match the public-private key pair, but you also need to access that private key for the usual use of biometrics. As usually described, this is not “the things you know and the things you have”, but it is still two-layer authentication.
Shikiar describes this: “When you log in, the service issues an encryption challenge that can only be answered with a private key on the device, which can be verified by something you have (such as a phone or laptop) and is often something you have (such as biometrics). The result is a login with phishing-notials, with no reusable credentials to steal.”
Passkeys-enabled devices and browsers
Passkeys is widely integrated at the operating system level. If you are using an operating system that does not natively support Passkeys (Linux), you can still use them. However, you need to use another device (such as a phone) to scan the QR code and verify yourself, or a third-party password manager.
Here are the operating systems that fully support Passkeys:
Each of these operating systems supports Passkeys for native applications as well as in browsers. Chromium supports Passkeys, covering the vast majority of available browsers, including Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and Google Chrome. The main non-gene browser, Mozilla Firefox, also supports version 122 or later versions of Passkeys.
How to create and store Passkeys
To use Passkey, you need to store them somewhere. The main operating systems that support Passkey already include a way to store them, but are not created equally.
Windows 10 and Windows 11
You need to set up Windows Hello to use Passkey on Windows 10 or Windows 11. settings Click Apply Account > Login Options. Whenever you want to use PassKey, you need to use Windows Hello for authentication, whether it’s face, fingerprint or PIN nail.
