Microsoft is taking advantage of the new FIDO2 authentication standard to eliminate usernames and passwords and replace them with compliant security key devices.

The functionality comes by way of Azure Active Directory (or ‘Azure AD’), Microsoft’s cloud-based identity management service for the enterprise. An impending Windows 10 update will allow users who link their security key devices to Azure ID profiles to log into any Windows 10 device through their keys alone.

Such security keys are already widely available, usually in the form of compact USB sticks; but with the FIDO2 standard having been announced just last week, security key makers are now hard at work on new devices designed specifically for compliance with the new FIDO Alliance standard. In a Windows Blogs post, Microsoft Senior Product Manager Pieter Wigleven said his company’s partners “are working on a variety of security key form factors” including “USB security keys and NFC enabled smartcards, just to name a few,” and highlighted a newly announced solution from Yubico.

It’s the latest example of how the new FIDO2 standard is already having a big impact on digital security, with its WebAuthn component poised to deliver web-based biometric and security key authentication as it rolls out to major browsers. The Windows Hello FIDO2 Security Key feature, meanwhile, is currently in a preview testing phase.

Source: Windows Blogs