Thanks to an increase in the amount and sophistication of cyberattacks, Microsoft wants to do away with passwords entirely, like, as a concept. This will happen eventually. It’s not like they’re going to delete your passwords starting tomorrow or something. But Microsoft is prepping for a future where logging in doesn’t require a password but rather a passkey.
In a blog post, Microsoft revealed that they block 7,000 password-related attacks every single second. That number has doubled in the past year. They have also seen a huge rise in phishing attacks.
The solution? Get rid of passwords altogether and replace them with passkeys — an authentication method that is faster, more reliable, more secure, and immune to the common password-related attacks we are all familiar with.
You might already be using a passkey on your phone, for instance. If you log in using biometric data like a fingerprint or your face, or if you use a personalized PIN, then you’re already familiar with passkeys.
According to Microsoft, signing in with a passkey is three times faster than using a password and eight times faster than a password in conjunction with a multifactor authenticator while being three times more successful at signing in than with passwords. This means you’re far more likely to mistype your password than have your phone misread your fingerprint.
Getting people on board with the shift from passwords to passkeys sounds like it might be difficult, but Microsoft says 99 percent of the people who start the passkey registration process see it through to the end.
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The post Microsoft Is Going to Delete Passwords for 1 Billion Users appeared first on VICE.
