Proton, a company well-known for its privacy-focused services and apps, has announced passkey support for its Proton Pass password manager. The ability to replace traditional and less secure passwords with a more reliable authentication method is now rolling out to free and paid customers of Proton Pass on all platforms.
Proton touts several benefits of its passkey support:
- Open source security: Consistent with the open, transparent nature of the passkey protocol, Proton’s passkey implementation, and the Proton Pass applications are fully open source. This approach allows for community review, contributing to a more secure and trustworthy passkey experience for everyone.
- Passkey sharing and interoperability: In Proton Pass, passkeys and passwords receive equal priority, ensuring both can be shared directly and exported to another service. This flexibility is part of our commitment to maintaining convenience and interoperability, ensuring passkeys are as user-friendly as traditional passwords.
- Innovative UX/UI design: Proton Pass displays passkeys in a straightforward way, hiding the complex cryptography behind a simple interface. This makes using passkeys as easy as using passwords, ensuring all users can securely log in without confusion.
- Rust-based robust implementation: Proton Pass leverages Rust for its development across all platforms. This choice ensures consistent behavior and top-notch security and performance across all user devices, mitigating risks of passkey corruption.
Customers who are not ready to switch to passkeys can continue using traditional passwords. Proton understands that it may take a while before passkeys become a universal standard across platforms and websites. For that reason, Proton Pass will continue improving the traditional password experience and related features, such as email aliases, 2FA authentication, etc.
However, Proton says adopting passkeys will improve security and simplify the online experience. Passkeys also provide additional security against phishing and data breaches for business customers.
You can learn more about passkeys in a post on the official Proton blog.