What Is Passkey
Passkey is an advanced method introduced in Windows 11 to secure your accounts. It stores secure keys on your device for increased protection. Therefore, it can be regarded as a replacement for traditional passwords. You can use passkeys on websites and applications that support them.
To register on a website, all you need to do is to select a username. The browser offers the option “create a passkey” for the account and then the passkey will be stored on the local device. Then passwords and two-factor authentication are no longer required.
As passkeys are created individually for each account, there’s no need to think of a different password for each purpose. Simply put, the passkey is convenient to use.
You can quickly log into the website with the help of the passkey. To unlock its use, use a PIN, a fingerprint, or facial recognition. The biometric features are only verified locally and are never transmitted to the website.
Windows 11 Will Have Its Own Passkey Manager
Microsoft is currently enhancing passkey support in Windows 11. Windows 11 introduces an advanced passkey manager in the Insider Preview Build 23486 released to the Dev Channel on June 22, 2023. Besides, Windows 11 has its own passkey management starting with this build.
The support for passkey should be available when visiting sites with Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge or when choosing “Windows Hello or external security key” at the passport prompt in the browser. As for other Chromium-based browsers, they may add identical functionality later.
You can create or sign in passkeys by using Windows Hello with a face, fingerprint, or PIN. Passkeys that are created and saved through Windows can be managed in Settings. After you open Settings, navigate to Accounts > Passkeys and then make changes based on your needs. For instance, you can look for and delete specific passkeys as needed.
How Passkey Manager Works
The functioning of passkey is based on public key or asymmetric cryptography. The passkey is one cryptographic key pair public and private. Once the passkey is created, both keys are stored on the user’s device. The website only captures the public key.
The website domain to which the access refers is automatically stored. Hence, it is impossible to use a passkey created for the Google domain (google.com) on a phishing site hosted on a different domain. Moreover, the passkey is cryptographically protected from phishing.
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Windows 11 will have its own passkey manager starting from Insider Preview Build 23486. This post collects some important information about that. You can take it as a reference.