Passwordless Login
Passwords are not as secure as we think of them. Yes! You read that right. Think of all the passwords you created for many different accounts. It’s hard to remember them, and you most likely would have set the same password for at least one account. No matter how much you try, the same password makes your account insecure. Even the passwords with excellent strength aren’t secure enough when the website or app you gave your password are not secure enough. Once a website leaked your password all of your accounts might be under the risk.
This technologically advanced era has introduced highly secure and super fast encryption techniques while retaining the websites’ ability to authenticate their users instead of passwords. Now the world has the tools and tech to move beyond passwords to protect sensitive user data.
What is Passwordless Login?
Tools that various websites can implement to let their user log into the system without entering or creating a password is called a passwordless login system.
But this doesn’t mean that users are let into the site without any verification. Without a password, users have to verify that they who they claim to be.
Why is the World Opting for Passwordless Login?
We can make passwords stronger by adding non-numerical characters, changing them annually, and avoiding filling information that’s easy to hack, but only a few of us do it. We have busy lives, or we don’t want to get ourselves into all that trouble.
This domino effect allows hackers to access multiple accounts by cracking the password of only one account. Removing these weakly-linked passwords is the solution.
As mentioned above, a passwordless login system makes it easier for any user to get into the website and access their data without the hassle of creating and remembering any password. It is hard to remember passwords, so different companies accommodate their users with this most effective, secure, and hassle-free feature.
Why is it Secure?
Think about email authentication. By entering an email address, you register yourself on a website. Then they send you an email to verify yourself- and that’s it. These passwordless login systems use highly advanced verification techniques than the typical username/password system. They gather data and localize access using the following techniques:
Token Generation Technique- this type of verification technique generates a random token or a string of characters. These characters or token make the account harder to crack because they are a substitute for the real data with no connection to the data itself.
Encryption- the difference between tokenization and encryptions is the algorithm used. The algo transforms the sensitive data into ciphertext that can only be decrypted using the encryption key.
How Passwordless Login System Works?
The different types of passwordless login systems rely on one of the following factors to verify the user’s identity:
Inheritance factor- depends on the user’s unique physical characteristics for their verification like iris or fingerprint scanning authentication.
Possession factor- this depends on the user verification through any possession they have, whether it is a physical asset like a key card or digitalized asset like an email account. It works with the logic that only the registered user will have access to the account and the asset.
Knowledge factor- this type of verification means what the user already is aware of. The user is the only one who knows (is aware of) the information, while other users are denied access for not having the correct credentials. The password login systems use this type of authentication, which is the least secure.
The password-free systems work on one or more than one of these factors for the verification process but without any password. Passwordless email (magic link) authentication, social sign-in, and biometric verification are the types of passwordless login systems.