Aug 5, 2022
With this new feature, you never have to remember your passwords
Or run the risk of getting hacked
Okay, so you might be familiar with the following. You discover a program that you can use for free, but before you can do anything you get that annoying form to create an account.
Okay, no problem you think, let’s make that account. You fill in your credentials, try to set up a password, and you encounter your first setback of the day. Your password should contain 12 characters, 1 symbol, and 2 numbers, and it should be mixed up with Uppercased and lowercase letters.
You just want to use that software. Why encounter this hurdle? Well, if you found yourself having hard times creating passwords then you definitely should copy that exact URL and head over to Safari.
Just copy that exact URL and head over to Safari
Safari will generate a password for you
The reason for this is that Safari will generate a password for you. Yes, that’s right. You get a fresh-out-of-the-oven password with all the requirements, and you don’t even have to think about which symbols you have to throw in it.
And the most important part is that Safari will generate a new password every time you create a new account for a different program.
Safari will generate a new password every time you create a new account
And it gets even better. The main reason why most companies really want you to create an account is that they then process your contact information, which in the digital world is mainly your email, Gmail, Twitter, or Facebook account.
So after creating several accounts for multiple programs you end up with an inbox that looks like this.
So Apple thought of that and enabled the “protect my email” function. This function generates a proxy email that’s connected to your Apple ID. This way, if let’s say the company gets hacked and your email gets stolen, the hackers will not process your email but just the proxy.
This function generates a proxy email that’s connected to your Apple ID
All this information is then stored in the so-called “Key Chain Access” program (In your iPhone it’s known as Password, and it lives in your Settings).
But you may already know all of this.
So why am I even troubling you with this information?
Well, that’s because Apple is planning on making this whole system even better. They packed it in a new feature called “Passkeys”.
With this feature, Apple aims to make the login process much easier. They basically want to get rid of the idea of remembering passwords, since most people will then use just one password for all their logins. And that makes them vulnerable to getting hacked.
So what is this “Passkeys feature” exactly?
Well, it basically generates a key that acts like your password. If this key gets stolen by a malicious website, they just have this generated key and not your password. Here is how Apple explains this concept
For users, sign-in with a passkey will work pretty much the same as a sign-in using iCloud Keychain and Face ID or Touch ID. You just choose a credential, authenticate with biometrics, and that’s it. However, while iCloud Keychain basically auto-fills your username and password into regular text fields, a passkey goes far beyond that.
The system generates a unique key that can only be accessed with user authentication via Face ID or Touch ID. This prevents malicious websites from trying to steal your passwords since passkeys are securely stored in the iCloud Keychain and are not visible to the user.
Thanks for reading until the end : )
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