Latest news with #Passkeys
Finextra
5 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
Mastercard achieves 49% e-commerce tokenisation across Europe in one year
A year after announcing its target of 100% e-commerce tokenisation across Europe, Mastercard reports it is almost halfway there. 2 This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. Speaking at the Money 20.20 conference in Amsterdam, Mastercard's Brice van de Walle, executive vice president, core payments, Europe, says that in just a year, the card scheme has achieved 49% e-commerce tokenisation across Europe, thanks to key strategic partnerships. 'It's really amazing that issuers, merchants, acquirers and processors have all been working together with us to make it very confident that by 2030, as we are already halfway there, we'll be at 100% as we initially envisaged," he says. Van de Walle also provided an update on the roll out of biometric payment Passkeys for online shopping, noting that three primary partners are now live: Dinero, Solidgate & Utoppia. When describing the importance of tokenisation, and especially the benefits of passkeys, van de Walle says: 'We know that when we perform e-com transactions, where we get the most friction is the authentication. When you need to enter your one-time password, you need to use an app from your bank to actually make an [passkeys] we'll be able to allow consumers to remain on the same device and use the biometric component of the device to perform the authentication - tremendously improving, first the conversion rate, then the approval rate.'
India Today
02-05-2025
- India Today
Microsoft eliminates passwords for new accounts, says you should use something better
Microsoft has announced that new Microsoft accounts will no longer require passwords. Instead, the company is nudging them to use Passkeys. The idea is that users shift completely towards a passwordless world and use modern, secure alternatives like Passkeys, facial recognition, fingerprint authentication, or security keys. Microsoft says it has been wanting to do this for nearly a decade. The company first began exploring passwordless sign-ins with the introduction of Windows Hello back in 2015. Since then, it has steadily added support for more secure methods of authentication. According to the company, today, over 99 per cent of its users who log into Windows with a Microsoft account do not use passwords but instead choose other options like biometrics or why is Microsoft going passwordless?The answer lies in both security and usability. Traditional passwords are vulnerable to phishing, brute-force attacks, and human error. Microsoft even highlights this vulnerability by reporting that it currently detects around 7,000 password-based cyber-attacks every second—more than double the rate seen in 2023. So as cybercriminals evolve their tactics, cracking a password has become an easy job to bypass digital security. Hence, instead of passwords, the company now wants users to use passkeys which are theoretically more is a Passkey?Unlike passwords, Passkeys are said to be significantly more secure and user-friendly for authentication. It's a standards-based form of authentication developed in partnership with the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) Alliance. FIDO designed the Passkeys to replace passwords for online sign-ins and companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Google are part of this alliance. At the heart of it, Passkeys leverage cryptographic keys, which are typically stored securely on a user's device (like a phone or computer) and linked to their biometric data (fingerprint, face ID) or a device PIN. So, given their nature of biometric authentication—passkeys can't be reused by someone else, stolen in a data breach, or subject to a phishing attack. It also eliminates the need to remember complex strings of characters which users need to create for making them virtually unhackable. According to Microsoft, a user signing in with Passkeys is three times more successful – to log in – than someone using a password, with a success rate of 98 per cent compared to just 32 per cent for the latter. Not only that, but sign-ins using Passkeys are also eight times faster. 'According to the FIDO Alliance, more than 15 billion user accounts can now sign in using Passkeys instead of passwords. But we need billions more to make every sign-in passwordless,' says Microsoft. Meanwhile, to encourage this shift from passwords to Passkeys, Microsoft has also rolled out a new sign-in interface that prioritises passwordless options. The company says this new design streamlines the process and highlights the most secure and convenient methods first. And going forward, any newly created Microsoft account will be "passwordless by default." That means Microsoft will not ask the new users to create or remember a password. Instead, users will be given the option to choose from secure sign-in options right from the start. Microsoft also highlights that in this shift it is also not leaving out the existing users. The company is giving the users option delete their passwords if they wish.
