Hello1, goodbye: Titans to ditch passwords

Apple, Google and Microsoft are looking to ditch passwords and replace them with a more secure way to use accounts or devices.

The US tech titans jointly announced support for a common standard that will let people sign in by unlocking their mobile phones, say, with fingerprint or face recognition.

“The complete shift to a passwordless world will begin with consumers making it a natural part of their lives,” said Microsoft vice-president Alex Simons.

“By working together as a community across platforms, we can at last achieve this vision and make significant progress toward eliminating passwords.”

Reliance on passwords alone is decried as a big security flaw on the internet, and people keep them overly simple or use the same one repeatedly to make it easier to manage many accounts.

Adopting standards created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium will allow websites and device makers to build secure, passwordless options into their offerings, the groups said.

Using secure keys instead of passwords would block phishing scams that trick people into disclosing log-in credentials and hackers that steal such data.

Support for password-free logins will be woven into Android and Chrome software over the coming year, Google product manager Sampath Srinivas said.

Apple and Microsoft announced plans to do likewise with their software.