Did you know May 4, 2023 is World Password Day?
Observed the first Thursday in May, World Password Day was created in 2013 to raise awareness of creating better passwords.
You’ve likely read tips and advice from security professionals about keeping your online accounts more secure:
- Don’t reuse passwords; keep them unique for each account
- Create long complex passphrases with a combination of letters, numbers, and special symbols
- Use a password manager
- Enable multi-factor authentication
Ten years after its launch, World Password Day has moved beyond encouraging good password habits, changing its focus on how to improve your digital security.
That change has brought different ways to implement passwordless sign-in technology; passkeys are one of the best known approaches promoted by the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance.
Read on to learn about two major companies announcing their new passwordless technology this week.
Google Launches Passkey Support for Google Accounts
Announced on their blog today, Google began rolling out passkeys for all Google accounts on all platforms.
Passkeys will be an additional option people can use to sign in to their accounts.
What you need to know:
- Passkeys are linked to each device
- They work with a local PIN (Personal Identification Number), fingerprint, or Face ID
- Passkeys only exist on your devices
- Google Workspace account administrators will need to enable the option for passkeys for end-users (option doesn’t exist yet)
- Passwords and multi-factor authentication will continue to work on your Google account
Learn more about passkeys on the Google Security Blog.
Dashlane Replaces Master Password
Password manager company Dashlane announced their plans to eliminate the Master Password for users and organizations.
In their blog post, Dashlane announced their plans for a passwordless login. But not one using passkeys, the approach promoted by the FIDO Alliance.
Dashlane’s passwordless approach relies on their mobile app, using a PIN.
What you need to know:
- Users can also use Face ID or fingerprint readers to authenticate
- Or they can log in to other devices by scanning a QR code
- If users lose a device, they can recover their account from another authenticated device
- People using the free Dashlane product (who only have access to one device) will need to recover their account using a recovery key that needs to be saved somewhere or printed out.
Learn how Dashlane’s passwordless login works.
Wrapping Up
Both Google and Dashlane took advantage of World Password Day to promote their approach for passwordless login. I look forward to learning what people think of the changes.
Can you imagine a day when you don’t have to remember a password?
Have you used passkeys for your online accounts?
