Apple, Google, and Microsoft move toward passwordless future

World Password Day saw three of the world’s largest tech companies agreeing on one thing: a passwordless future.

In a joint effort to make the web more secure and usable for all, Apple, Google, and Microsoft declared their plans to expand support for a common passwordless sign-in standard, utilizing the one created by the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. The new capability is anticipated to allow websites and apps to offer consistent, secure, and easy passwordless sign-ins for consumers across devices and platforms.

“This new capability stands to usher in a new wave of low-friction FIDO implementations alongside the ongoing and growing utilization of security keys — giving service providers a full range of options for deploying modern, phishing-resistant authentication,” said Andrew Shikiar, executive director and CMO of the FIDO Alliance.

In an email to The Verge, FIDO Alliance president Sampath Srinivas said that the expectation for passkey support to be available across the industry would be “in 2022 and 2023.”

According to Microsoft, there are 921 password attacks every second. This nearly doubled the frequency over the past 12 months. They warned that weak passwords may do more harm than good as attackers continue operations. In the United States alone, 68 percent of people actually use the same password for different accounts.

“Password-only authentication is one of the biggest security problems on the web, and managing so many passwords is cumbersome for consumers, which often leads consumers to reuse the same ones across services,” stated Apple in a press release.