Privacy @lemmy.ml Soothing Salamander @lemmy.ml 1mo ago

Bitwarden, Dashlane, 1Password and others have joined together to make passkeys portable

bitwarden.com Security vendors join forces to make passkeys more portable for everyone | Bitwarden Blog

FIDO Alliance publishes industry standards for consumers to easily and securely transfer passkeys across platforms and password managers.

Looks like a huge amount of security vendors are working to have a secure and open standard for passkey portability between platforms.

It is always good to see major collaboration in the security space like this considering the harsh opinions that users of some of these vendors have toward many of the others. I just wish apps and sites would stop making me login with username and password if passkeys are meant to replace that lol.

64 comments

Seems like people in the comments are misunderstaning the announcement entirely. This protocol is about import and export from password managers and not about having them synced between devices. It would prevent a lock in effect. This is a great development!

FIDO Alliance’s draft specifications – Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP) and Credential Exchange Format (CXF) – define a standard format for transferring credentials in a credential manager including passwords, passkeys and more to another provider in a manner that ensures transfer are not made in the clear and are secure by default.
- Lock in effect of passkeys is just infuriating 😂good to see progress!
  
  I personally like it. Imo passkeys should optimally be device bound and the private keys should be stored in TPM or equivalent and be non-exportable.
I don't like that passkeys are portable, this kind of defeats the entire purpose. The way they were sold to me is the following: it's 2 factors in one. The first is the actual device where the key lives, and the second, the user verification, like a pin, face scan, fingerprint etc. If it's synced across the cloud, there's no longer the first factor being the unique key on the unique device.

Granted, passkeys even without the first factor are still magnitudes better in terms of convenience and security compared to passwords, but it just disappoints me a little that there are no good options to save passkeys on my local device only, with no cloud sync.

If anyone knows of a local-only passkey manager app for android, as well as the same as a firefox extension, I'd love to know about it!
- I guess you're better off buying a physical security key, which offers some guarantee that the keys cannot be exflitrated from the device.
  
  I have one, but I use it as a second factor because it does not have a way of identifying me
- If they're not portable how would I for example login to an account while on my Desktop, if I set up the passkey on my Phone?
  
  You generate a second one on the other device.
  
  There are already systems in place that allow temporary passkey sharing, for example with a QR code (CaBLE) https://www.corbado.com/blog/webauthn-passkey-qr-code
- Them being portable makes them actually useful though for me, unless there was a way to use them from a phone to login to a website on a desktop/other device.
  
  Being able to login into a password manager and use a passkey is great, passkeys need to become mainstream to get everyone away from passwords, but they can't be locked locally onto one platform or you have issues. The regular joe won't be backing them up from their iPhones or whatever.
  
  I don't see why a local option wouldn't exist though, perhaps they will come once passkeys have matured further.
  
  I read the post more closely and saw that this isn't about syncing the keys across password managers, it's about transfering them to a different password manager/device. In that case I'm okay with the initiative. This is to prevent lock-in and I'm all for it.
- They should be portable. I don't know if they should be stored in the cloud though. Ideally you can open a password database in whatever application you want if you have the database and login information. Not allowing this is inconvenient and doesn't seriously increase security.
  
  Having them not be portable ensures people use them less frequently. If I couldn't sync mine between my phone and desktop I probably wouldn't use it. The way I do it isn't built into my manager (KeepassDX), but I use Syncthing to keep it up to date on both devices. It'd be better if there was an official option for people bad with technology.
- Keepassdx is actively working on this
- Admittedly, for some password managers, the passkeys are stored locally and are not accessible in the cloud unencrypted without the decryption keys that exist on devices you authorize.
  
  This may still not make a difference for you though. For me, I consider passkeys, even stored in the cloud, to be enough for the vast majority, so I appreciate these vendors working to make passkeys more easy for the end user.
  
  I agree and I still store my passkeys in proton pass, but that's more because there's no real option for storing them locally only. I really like passkeys and they make me optimistic about the future, it's just that I think the way they should work is that each device should have a passkey registered to an account, so that the access can then be revoked if the device was compromised. And it's even convenient in this way with the QR codes that you can use to temporarily share a passkey to then be able to add the new device.
- Loos like no one knows of Enpass
- Setup 1password with a physical security key might fix that issue somewhat.
Why is the buzz around passkeys is back? I am seeing them way more often than they used to be. I think I have created passkeys for 2 apps and don't even know how that worked, it such a breeze that almost felt it wasn't secure lol.

In what ways the passkeys are different than authenticator apps?
- Passkeys are meant to replace password-based login whereas TOTP apps are only meant as a 2FA method.
- Convenience and security.
  
  Authenticator apps are still vulnerable to phishing, passkeys are not.
  
  With the ability to transfer passkeys, the attack vector phishing does not sound that far fetched. Tho i have not looked into the transfer process.
  
  We will see i guess.
I have my passkeys in my keepass file in my private cloud since about 6month using strongbox on iOS and KeepassXC on Linux. Sadly, not many websites support passkeys on firefox for linux desktop yet… Hope this helps!
- Lol, I'm a semi-noob and this sentence is really intimating.
  
  Keepass is a style of encrypted file with a list of the passwords and the syntax is standardised. There are many apps/programs for any platform that offer pw management based on that file. I use keepassXC app on linux and strongbox on iOS since both of them are well integrated into the operating systems. On ios i use the webDav protocol to sync the keepass file on my server with strongbox app. On Linux I use nextcloud sync to mount my files on the server into linux and in keepassXC I have set it to automatically grab that keepass file on boot. Ah of course the keypass file is protected by a strong password, but this could as well be a hardware token like a yubikey. But if you have a yubikey, you just store your passkeys on that😂
yay glorified, overcomplicated passwords!

i get hate for it but just use a password manager if you can't juggle them?
- I think it is quite the opposite for the end user. If apps/websites, begin to replace traditional password login with passkeys, this will be a measurable improvement for average consumers.
  
  not really an improvement if you need extra software for it.
  
  and cant just easily login.
- How about passkeys having solved phishing attacks?
  
  i doubt it lol

64 comments