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News and Advice on the World's Latest Innovations | ZDNET

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/&gt;Passwords are a notorious security mess. The FIDO Alliance wants to replace them with better, more secure technology and now Apple is it them in this effort.We all use passwords. We also all suck at using them. 81% of all hacking-based . So, it is that the has been seeking to replace password-only logins with secure and fast login experiences across websites and apps using the emerging standard Their efforts have been supported by nearly all major technology and e-commerce companies with one major exception: Apple. Now, Apple has joined FIDO. " and companies have been trying to kill them off for years," said Merritt Maxim, principal security analyst in a CNBC interview. WebAuth, is a written by the and FIDO. Its application programming interface (API) allows servers to register and authenticate users using public key cryptography instead of a password.But Apple has always stayed a step away from the FIDO Alliance's efforts to get rid of them. Recently, that's been changing.&nbsp;In 2018, for WebAuthn. By December 2019. , like the YubiKey, using the WebAuthn standard over near-field communication (NFC), USB, or Lightning in iOS 13.3.This works because WebAuthn enables users to register and authenticate on websites or mobile apps using a public key cryptographic "authenticator" instead of a password. This can be a hardware security key, like those from ; a biometric ID derived from your PC or smartphone's fingerprint sensor, or a device-based authentication program.&nbsp; Apple still trails other companies. Rolf Lindemann, co-chair of FIDO's Security Requirements Working Group, explained, "Currently, there is full FIDO support in three major platforms: Google Android and Chrome, Microsoft Windows and Edge, and Mozilla Firefox." While third-party security and authentication programs, such as the , supported WebAuthn logins on mobile Apps on iOS and Apple Watch Apps, "some organizations have been hesitant to deploy FIDO because there was no [major] public commitment from Apple to FIDO. Now with the addition of Apple, all major platform vendors in the FIDO Alliance prove that the world is finally ready for this technology."Lindemann believes that now that Apple is getting a first-hand look into where FIDO is heading, it can help direct it. This will "result in support for passwordless authentication that best fits the Apple ecosystem."Hopefully, now that Apple, a major player in the mobile space, has committed publicly to supporting FIDO and WebAuthn, we can finally start taking a step forward in putting passwords into the grave. Their day as a serious way of securing your information is long done.Related Stories:

/&gt;Passwords are a notorious security mess. The FIDO Alliance wants to replace them with better, more secure technology and now Apple is it them in this effort.We all use passwords. We also all suck at using them. 81% of all hacking-based . So, it is that the has been seeking to replace password-only logins with secure and fast login experiences across websites and apps using the emerging standard Their efforts have been supported by nearly all major technology and e-commerce companies with one major exception: Apple. Now, Apple has joined FIDO. " and companies have been trying to kill...

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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge, PC operating system; 300bps was a fast Internet connection; WordStar was the state of the art word processor; and we liked it.His work has been published in everything from highly technical publications (IEEE Computer, ACM NetWorker, Byte) to business publications (eWEEK, InformationWeek, ZDNet) to popular technology (Computer Shopper, PC Magazine, PC World) to the mainstream press (Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, BusinessWeek).

https://www.zdnet.com/meet-the-team/us/steven-j-vaughan-nichols/

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

ZDNet is a business technology news website published by CBS Interactive, along with TechRepublic. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication owned by CNET Networks.

News and Advice on the World's Latest Innovations | ZDNET

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