5 Reasons Why Passkeys Are Better Than Passwords for User Authentication
To this day, passwords are used worldwide to secure digital assets. Different authentication layers, like MFA, 2FA, etc., are used with them to ensure the utmost safety.
However, are they safe enough? Christiaan Brand, product manager at Google, tweets Passwords are dead. May we never have to see them, remember them, or type them.
We also believe it’s high time to retire the old guard. Simply because passwords come with several adversities. For instance, they are easy to crack, leading to data breaches, and are problematic to manage & remember.
That’s where passkeys come in—a refreshed, futuristic, and convenient way to authenticate users without passwords.
This article introduces you to the next breakthrough in user authentication, passkeys. Also, it lists 6 reasons why it’s better than traditional passwords.
What’s Passkeys?
Passkeys were introduced to accelerate the availability of simpler and stronger passwordless user sign-ins. With this technology, users can seamlessly log in to online services with biometrics like face and fingerprint recognition, PIN, or pattern – no need to manage, enter and remember passwords.
Password and passkey sign-up/log-in solutions look similar on the surface. But under the hood, everything is changed.
Websites and apps treat passwords as plain text when the user enters them. Then, the services apply complex algorithms to encrypt and scramble the text. But still, they are user-generated texts.
On the split side, passkeys use public key cryptography. Each public and private key-pair instance of the technology is unique. It’s created and stored by the local system for its user. The private key is stored on the user’s device, and the public one is shared with the respective app/site.
All-in-all, this next-gen passwordless breakthrough is revolutionizing how passwords are stored, used, and managed.
5 Reasons to Choose Passkeys Over Passwords
Here are the top six reasons why users and businesses should choose passkeys over traditional passwords:
Enhanced Security
Microsoft’s Director of Identity Security said, There’s no password attacks when there’s no password present.
Unlike passwords, there’s no user-generated text present in passkeys. There are only two crypto keys, public and private. The private one stays completely offline on a user’s device, so the chances of getting guessed, phished, intercepted, or stolen are zero. Moreover, the public key is completely useless without access to its counterpart.
Passkeys are generated separately for all the services, they are unique and unpredictable. So, a user that has generated a passkey for service X will be different from their other passkeys.
Users can’t get phished even if they try, as passkeys only present themselves to a legitimate website. Unlike password-based scenarios, customers don’t have to self-check the app/site.
Improved User Experience
According to Google’s 2019 study, 75% of Americans find maintaining their passwords hard. And in an attempt to ease the situation, they are using easy-to-guess passwords, sharing them, and re-using them.
With passkeys, users can say farewell to manually creating, entering, and managing passwords. Their device will do all the hard lifting for them. For instance, choosing unique & complex crypto keys, storing them, and entering on successful authentication via biometrics, PIN, or pattern.
How can we skip the password forget part? Thanks to passkeys, there’s no such thing as forgetting or resetting. So, it results in saving time and a smooth-flowing user authentication experience.
Resistant to Various Types of Attacks
According to HYPR’s 2022 State of Passwordless Security Report, 89% of organizations experienced a phishing attack in the past year. And as per Perception Point, there’s been a 365% increase in advanced phishing attacks over the past year.
The culprit behind the attacks? Passwords.
Passkeys are proven to resist threats of the following:
- Phishing scams
- Keylogging
- Dictionary attacks
- Harvesting
- Brute Force
And how are passkeys able to block common cyber-attacks? By taking the password out of the equation. The private crypto keys are stored behind the biometric/pin/pattern safe wall on users’ devices.
Moreover, passkeys are randomly generated, so there’s no way to guess them. And because the public key is designed to be ‘public’, it’s useless without access to the private one stored on the user’s device.
Scalability
Passkeys don’t require users to enroll services from scratch when switching devices. The keys are shareable with new devices via QR code or cloud-based authentication for easy scalability. Many platforms also support sign-in with a passkey from a nearby mobile/PC.
Future Proof
Apple, Microsoft, and Microsoft are working together to help their customers authenticate seamlessly via passkeys. The three-major tech giants have rolled out passkey support to replace the good-old-fashioned passwords.
- Apple announced passkey support in iOS 16 and macOS Venture in Sep 2022 and Oct 2022.
- Google rolled out the support on Android devices in October 2022.
- Microsoft is set to deliver the support in 2023.
The three-tech companies are confident about the passwordless future. Gradually, other platforms are also beginning to work their way toward passkeys.
Other platforms that support passkeys sign-in from a nearby device are:
- Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome on Windows
- Edge, Safari, and Google Chrome on macOS
- ChromeOS
Integrate Passkeys with Vault Vision to Your Site
Want to integrate passkeys into your site or app? Vault Vision can help. We provide easy, fast, and secure user logins using three types of passkeys – FaceID, TouchID, and PIN.
To simplify passkey setup for non-technical people, we provide boilerplate code, pre-configured setup, starter kits, and apps. Also, our services are OpenID Connect Certified.
Final Words
Companies worldwide are getting ready to replace passwords with passkeys. As per Statista Research Department, passwordless adoption increased considerably over the past years, estimated at 65.2 percent in 2023.
Passkeys is fast, convenient, and secure, evolving the sign-in experience of users and businesses worldwide. Your company can also feature it using our user authentication platform without getting too technical.
Try out Vault Vision’s Launch and Growth Plans today for free – without entering your credit card details.
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