Summary

Passkeys are setto replace passwordsover the next few years.

ThisCybersecurity Awareness Weekarticle is brought to you in association withIncogni.

What Are Passkeys?

Two people exchanging passkeys

Simakova Mariia / Shutterstock.com

Old-fashioned passwords are inconvenient and often pose a risk to user security.

So, the FIDO Alliance createdpasskeys.

The idea here is surprisingly simple.

A master lock securing the latch on a storage unit

Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek

With passkeys, there’s nothing to memorize or jot down.

This secret key corresponds to a “public key” that’s kept on the website’s server.

When the keys are put together, your identity is verified, and you’re allowed to jump in.

Nobody knows your secret keys, not even you.

If a website is hit by a data breach, only its public keys will be leaked.

All major operating systems now offer a built-in passkey manager.

Some password management tools, such as 1Password, also offer passkey support.

After all, if you don’t know your private keys, how are you supposed to share them?

Which Passkey Managers Allow You to Share Passkeys?

Only a handful of passkey management services allow you to share your passkeys.

There are no such rumors forWindows 11’spasskey implementation.

Note that passwords and passkeys will coexist for some time.

Creating a passkey for a website won’t make your password unusable, at least for now.

And passkey sharing may be unnecessary (or discouraged) even as passwords are phased out.

As passkeys become common and enforced, the problem of account sharing will need to be addressed.

But, for better or worse, passkey sharing may not be the chosen solution.

The idea that these business will encourage passkey sharing is somewhat unbelievable.

But even in these situations, passkey sharing isn’t completely necessary.

Businesses may simply ask you to generate a unique passkey for each person.

Or, they may ask everyone to create a unique account that can be linked to yours.

Not to mention, passkeys are supposed toincreaseuser security.

It will take a few years for everything to shake out.