Your phone will soon be your password; Microsoft, Google and Apple join hands to create a new authentication standard

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On the "World Password Day", which was on May 5, Google, Microsoft and Apple joined hands to “kill” the password.

The three technology giants have vowed to create a future where your phone will be the primary source of online authentication. The new standard is being referred to as "muti-device FIDO credential".

The FIDO Alliance, or Fast Identity Online, is an open-source industry association standard that has been created to facilitate, easier and safer authentication online. The three tech biggies have extended support to the initiative,

The alliance said in a blog post, "Password-only authentication is one of the biggest security problems on the web, and managing so many passwords is cumbersome for consumers, which often leads consumers to reuse the same ones across services."

These unsafe practices led to costly account takeovers, data breaches and stolen identities.

Also Read: Explained | A future without passwords

Through the new system, users will be able to sign-in to their accounts "through the same action that they take multiple times each day to unlock their devices, such as a simple verification of their fingerprint or face, or a device PIN."

The new approach would protect people against phishing and the logins would be more secure "compared to passwords and legacy multi-factor technologies such as one-time passcodes sent over SMS", the alliance said.

The new standard will work using Bluetooth, requiring physical proximity of the device and the user, to safeguard against unwanted account takeovers.

The alliance also said the new method would only use Bluetooth to check proximity and the sign-in process would not require any Bluetooth properties.

This also allows companies like Microsoft, Google and Apple to securely store users’ credentials, which can be moved over from one device to another without hassle.

If you lose your device, you can still sign-in using your password as a backup.

Passwords have long been a problem when it comes to securing an account. Ideally, you want a long, randomised string of numbers and letters for better protection, unfortunately, humans aren't good at memorising random strings.

Also Read: 5 issues with the recent Cert-In directions and what they mean

What ends up happening, more often than not, is that you will create a comfortable password for an account and then repeat it for other services, leaving all of them vulnerable in case of a hack.

The new standard would "become available across Apple, Google, and Microsoft platforms over the course of the coming year", the alliance said.