Passkeys are built on the FIDO2 standard (CTAP2 + WebAuthn standards). They remove the shared secret, stop phishing at the source, and make credential-stuffing useless.
But adoption is still low, and interoperability between Apple, Google, and Microsoft isn’t seamless.
I broke down how passkeys work, their strengths, and what’s still missing
Yep… It’s as secure as your email. Or they are just leveraging the passkeys on the emails.
I’m not really concerned about the security of it. Moreso the inconvenience of having to open my email client, specifically on the same device, and then sit there and click the refresh button over and over, waiting for it to come through, and then having to go back and delete it after so there’s not even more clutter in my inbox…
Refresh…Refresh…Refresh…
Send new link…
Message arrives…
‘This link is no longer valid’
Honestly, convenience is security (change-my-mind lol) insofar as it measurably impacts rate of user adoption/adherence and thus outcomes.
It’s the annoyance you describe that leads most users to skip 2FA setup until it’s forced on them, for example.
Not at all. Typically they’re opposites. But I understand what you’re trying to say. More convenience leads to better security.
Or rather, making security convenient leads to adoption. Making it inconvenient leads to insecure workarounds.
Exactly
If it’s more convenient to be insecure than secure, users will pick insecure every time. There’s a reason there are so many bad password in the top passwords in breach dumps.
I have to tell myself every time I go through some of my login flows that inconvenience to me means more so to an attacker, but most people don’t have an adversarial mindset and just want it to work.
User inconvenience is not at all the same thing as security.
No, but the two tens to be correlated.
Example, MFA authentication is a security feature, but inconvenient as shit with low or no lifetime. Same complaints about short lived sessions on app sites. Especially when every login requires MFA…
MFA can be a variety of different things. In the case of passkeys, a prompt comes up on the screen, you click it, and that’s it. It’s both secure and convenient. That’s why it’s great.
Yeah you get it. It’s a “slow = fast” type of spiel, just a bone to pick with colleagues who embrace anti-user practices needlessly.
Don’t forget the intermediary
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
Haha that’s the one ;)