Microsoft has announced support for passkeys for its consumer accounts, finally introducing a means for users to ditch password-based sign-ins.
In a post announcing the change, the company says it’s now possible to log-in to products like Microsoft 365 and Outlook with your face, fingerprint or device pin. USB security keys are also now compatible. The functionality is available on Windows devices, as well as Microsoft products on Apple and Google platforms.
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Microsoft says it is using World Password Day to consign those hard-to-remember, easy-to-crack passwords to history, in favour of biometrics and device pins.
“With passkeys, instead of creating, managing, remembering, and entering passwords, you access your digital accounts the same way you unlock your device—usually with your face, fingerprint, or device PIN,” Microsoft said in the blog post.
“More and more apps and services are adding support for passkeys; you can already use them to sign in to the most popular ones. Passkeys are so much easier and more secure than passwords that we predict passkeys will replace passwords almost entirely (and we hope this happens soon).”
Microsoft is guiding users towards creating a passkey and then signing in on their device. The company says, after setting up the passkeys, users will be able to find the option under “sign-in options” on the main login page. Then users will be able to select their chosen passkey – face, fingerprint, pin or security key – from a security window.
The link to get started is here.
Microsoft is a little bit later to the party than many of its rivals like Apple, Google, WhatsApp, Amazon, and Nintendo who have all introduced passkeys.
