Why you need to stop using passwords and switch to this secure alternative now

Passkeys have seen a significant surge in adoption, becoming more widely available in 2022 and gaining popularity due to their enhanced security and ease of use compared to traditional passwords. The FIDO Alliance, a consortium instrumental in passkey development, reported in a 2026 survey that approximately five billion passkeys are now in global use, with around 90 percent of individuals aware of them. This increase in passkey adoption coincides with the growing threat of phishing and AI-powered cyberattacks, making online security a paramount concern. Experts suggest that transitioning from passwords to passkeys can effectively mitigate the risk of remote phishing attacks targeting employee login credentials. Eric Sachs, corporate vice president of identity and network access at Microsoft, stated that passkeys are a crucial element in reducing this specific risk, allowing users to address other cybersecurity challenges once the primary threat of password compromise is eliminated. Passkeys function as a login mechanism but differ from passwords by being random bytes of data unique to a single website, rather than human-created strings accessible across multiple sites. The process involves two parts: device verification to confirm user identity and the transmission of the specific passkey to the designated website. Gary Orenstein, chief customer officer at Bitwarden, characterized this as a "dedicated handshake" between the service provider and the user, emphasizing the authentication of the user's access to the passkey itself.