In a very rare rapprochement, Apple, Microsoft and Google have joined forces to offer a new generation of means of identification. It would simply allow you to no longer use a password. In a few months, we may no longer have to remember our passwords, whether we use Safari, macOS, Windows, iOS, Chrome…
The end of the password announced several years ago
Six years earlier, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) started a project with a specific mission: to remove passwords. Earlier, several big names like Microsoft, Google and PayPal had come together with the same idea in mind and created the FIDO Alliancee. This very complex task will culminate in 2019 with the official WebAuthn standard, the result of a collaboration between the FIDO Alliance and W3C. All that remains is to establish it and democratize it.
” Just as we design our products to be intuitive and powerful, we also design them to be private and secure. said Kurt Knight, director of platform product marketing at Apple. ” Working with the industry to establish new, more secure login methods that provide better protection and eliminate password vulnerabilities is at the heart of our commitment to building products that provide maximum security and a seamless user experience – all for the purpose of keeping users’ personal information secure. »
The operation of this mode of identification is ultimately quite simple. Users can connect to an online service, as they usually already do. Only, in order for the site to verify their identity without a password, they will be asked to use a secondary device. They can use several solutions for verification, including the front camera, or the fingerprint reader. For the more reluctant, it will also be possible to use a simple code, or even draw a shape.
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Illustration of a connection using the WebAuthn standard. Picture: Google.
While these standards are already embedded in billions of recent devices and browsers, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have taken the lead in extending their capabilities to support them on their platforms. They have also contributed to extending these functions to mobile devices, with access to credentials, or even connection authorization for a nearby device. “ For example, users can log in on a Google Chrome browser running on Microsoft Windows – using a password on an Apple device,” says Vasu Jakkal, VP of Security at Microsoft.
Without it, the user experience would certainly have been decried, and the adoption of this world without a password very complicated. Now that these defects are erased, the FIDO Alliance announces a launch by 2023.