Microsoft began rolling out passkey support to its consumer accounts in May 2024, allowing users to sign in with their face, fingerprint, or device pin as an alternative to a password. In May of this year Microsoft shifted to making passkey the default sign-in for all new Microsoft accounts.

According to Microsoft, the point of passkey is to make the future password-less and to counteract the close to 4,000 password attacks estimated to occur worldwide every second .

How does passkey work?

Instead of a single vulnerable secret password that can be stolen or guessed by hackers, passkey access uses two unique keys known as a cryptographic pair.

One key is stored on your devices guarded by your biometrics or pin, and the other key stays with the app or website for which you created the

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