The password is finally on its way to becoming history with passport keys. Microsoft has announced that passkeys have been officially launched for consumer accounts.
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You may have had access for a while, but now everyone does
“Ten years ago, Microsoft envisioned a bold future: a world free of passwords. Every year we celebrate World Password Day by updating you on our progress towards eliminating passwords forever. Today, we’re announcing password support for Microsoft consumer accounts, the next step toward our vision of easy, secure access for everyone,” proclaim Microsoft CEOs Vasu Jakkal and Joy Chik, revealing that the number of password attacks has increased from 115 per second in 2015 to 4000 per second in 2024.
To add a passkey to the desired device, use aka.ms/addproof and sign in with the desired Microsoft account.
Starting today, you can use a passkey to sign in to Microsoft apps and websites, including Microsoft 365 and Copilot on desktop and mobile browsers. Support for signing in to mobile versions of Microsoft applications using passkeys will follow in the coming weeks.
Vasu Jakkal and Joy Chik, Microsoft
Passkeys work so that after you have logged in with a password on a device, you no longer need the password to log in to the same hardware, but instead use your face, finger or a PIN code. Security is increased by the fact that one part for unlocking the device is stored locally on the device, and the other in the service or app.
Passkeys started in earnest last year, and in December the popular password manager 1Password announced that they have beta support for Passkeys to log into the program as well.
More and more apps and services are adding support for passwords; you can already use them to log into the most popular ones. Passkeys are so much easier and more secure than passwords that we predict that passwords will almost completely replace passwords (and we hope this happens soon).
Vasu Jakkal and Joy Chik, Microsoft
