The days of having to remember all of your passwords across all of your devices and accounts may be coming to an end soon.
Apple, Microsoft, and Google have joined forces with the World Wide Web Consortium and the FIDO Alliance to develop a new password-free sign-in standard that will allow users to log in and unlock all of their accounts and devices without using a single password.
Instead, you’ll only need biometric scans of your finger or face to gain access to everything, including new platforms and hardware. The companies hope that the new end-to-end passwordless standard will prevent future phishing attacks that result in stolen personal information and identities, citing password-only authentication as one of the biggest threats to cybersecurity.
“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 Microsoft’s corporate VP of identity program management Alex Simons in a statement.
“By working together as a community across platforms, we can at last achieve this vision and make significant progress toward eliminating passwords. We see a bright future for FIDO-based credentials in both consumer and enterprise scenarios and will continue to build support across Microsoft apps and services.”
While there isn’t a detailed timeline yet as to when these new technologies may be adopted, Apple’s statement says that it will arrive across all platforms “over the course of the coming year.”
