Passkeys promise secure simplicity, don't deliver

If you recently signed into your Google, Microsoft, or Amazon account, you may have seen a message asking you to setup a passkey. In theory passkeys are simple, using something like your phone's fingerprint or face ID sensor in place of a password. However, the trick is in the details. If you set up a passkey on your phone, it may be difficult to use that passkey when signing into an account using your computer. Or, perhaps you use multiple password managers (a common faux pas that we can help with), which leads to problems accessing passkeys. You can read more about the saga of passkeys by clicking here. 

Right now, our advice is to pass on passkeys. If you want better security, turn on 2-factor authentication for important websites so that they send you a text message to confirm it's you when you log in for the first time on a new device. For the strongest security, instead of receiving a code via text message, you can have your password manager automatically generate these codes (known as one-time passwords). Our favorite password manager, 1Password, can do this with ease. Click here for instructions for 1Password.