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Manila Bulletin devider Technews devider Moving to passkeys

Moving to passkeys

Published Oct 25, 2022 04:54 pm

Apple (along with Microsoft and Google) has started the move to rid of passwords as a means of authenticating users. With today's release of MacOS 13.0 (Ventura) and iPadOS 16.1, the entire Apple ecosystem now supports passkeys with iCloud syncing. Whilst I use Yubikeys, I figured that I might as well enable passkeys.

Prior to today, Safari (on Monterey) supports passkeys but required that you setup one for each Apple device. I have this setup for some of my cloud accounts, such as Simplelogin.io, Cloudflare.com and our work NextCloud instance. For each one, I have WebAuthn set for the Macbook Pro and another for the iPhone (and another for the iPad). It was so convenient to login (compared to Yubikeys, which requires that you insert the dongle to the USB port or tap it on the device and use NFC) - all you have to do was login and wait for the prompt for your FaceID or TouchID.

With all Apple's operating systems now in sync, passkeys can now be synced through iCloud. Unfortunately, I had to re-create the passkeys for all my cloud accounts and test if it syncs properly. First was to try it on Simplelogin.io.

Logging in and deleting all my WebAuthn keys (for each Mac and for the iPhone and iPad) and reissuing just one. I used Safari on Ventura to generate. After setting this up, I tried logging in on the iPhone. And what do you know? It worked! The key synced via iCloud. After Simplelogin.io, I reconfigured Cloudflare.com, and our work NextCloud instance. I did the same for Proton.me. Unfortunately, Fastmail.com and 1Password do not support passkeys just yet - so these remain Yubikeys only.

My work Google Workspace for Edu account remains exclusively on Yubikey only after I tried out adding a passkey, it asked me to download a Google app, sorry, but no! Other services that I use, such as NextDNS.io and ControlD.com, still don't support passkeys. Heck, they don't even support YubiKeys, but they do support non-SMS-based multi-factor authentication!

Now add the local online services, e.g., Landbank, Bank of Philippine Islands, Citibank PH, PayMaya, GCash, Smart and Globe, to name a few, which favor SMS (which is not encrypted, nor secure, nor private, and worse, prone to hijacking) over anything more secure. I wonder when these services will support U2F and WebAuthn to protect us, at least provide an OPTION to DISABLE SMS and use Yubikeys and passkeys exclusively. We need better ways to verify and authenticate our accounts when accessed online or thru the mobile applications!

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