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
Think of passkeys like they’re backups.
If you have one, you have none. If you have two, you have one. If you have three, at least one of them has to live offsite.
There are a ton of people who can’t reliably meet the “three” threshold, and plenty who can’t meet the two.
Good way of putting it. How many people have three devices they can use for storing passkeys? I don’t and I’m a nerd.
I do; or at least I can. But really, Device #2 should be in a fire safe, and Device #3 should be in a safe deposit box. These should be “set and forget” devices, not just “the laptop that I use and the phone that I use”. Those are additional costs, additional planning, additional effort, additional administration (because you need to also be checking that these cold devices still work on a scheduled basis), maybe additional required skill (depending on what you want these set and forget devices to be). You need to have an appropriate place to keep that fire safe. And when one of those cold devices doesn’t work anymore, you have to figure out why and likely replace it.
To do it right, you really have to have your shit together. That I don’t.