Apple, Google and Microsoft have revealed plans to expand support for a common passwordless sign-in standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium.
While managing passwords for each digital service, mobile application, and internet solution is cumbersome for consumers, password-only authentication also poses one of the biggest cybersecurity concerns.
“The complete shift to a passwordless world will begin with consumers making it a natural part of their lives. Any viable solution must be safer, easier, and faster than the passwords and legacy multi-factor authentication methods used today,” said Alex Simons, the corporate vice president of Identity Programme Management at Microsoft.
The new capability will allow websites and apps to offer consistent, secure, and easy passwordless sign-ins to consumers across devices and platforms.
The expanded standards-based capabilities will give websites and apps the ability to offer an end-to-end passwordless option.
“For Google, it represents nearly a decade of work we’ve done alongside FIDO, as part of our continued innovation towards a passwordless future. We look forward to making FIDO-based technology available across Chrome, ChromeOS, Android and other platforms, and encourage app and website developers to adopt it, so people around the world can safely move away from the risk and hassle of passwords,” said Mark Risher, the senior director of Product Management at Google.
Users will sign in through the same action that they take multiple times each day to unlock their devices, such as a simple verification of their fingerprint or face, or a device PIN.
This new approach protects against phishing and sign-in will be radically more secure when compared to passwords and legacy multi-factor technologies such as one-time passcodes sent over SMS.
“Simpler, stronger authentication is not just FIDO Alliance’s tagline — it also has been a guiding principle for our specifications and deployment guidelines. Ubiquity and usability are critical to seeing multi-factor authentication adopted at scale, and we applaud Apple, Google, and Microsoft for helping make this objective a reality by committing to support this user-friendly innovation in their platforms and products,” said Andrew Shikiar, the executive director and CMO of the FIDO Alliance.
These new capabilities are expected to become available across Apple, Google, and Microsoft platforms over the course of the coming year.
