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On Tuesday, at the ongoing Microsoft Ignite, Yubico, the leading provider of authentication and encryption hardware, announced the long-awaited YubiKey Bio. YubiKey Bio is the first YubiKey to support fingerprint recognition for secure and seamless passwordless logins. As per the team this feature has been a top requested feature from many of their YubiKey users.

Key features in YubiKey Bio

  1. The YubiKey Bio delivers the convenience of biometric login with the added benefits of Yubico’s hallmark security, reliability and durability assurances.
  2. Biometric fingerprint credentials are stored in the secure element that helps protect them against physical attacks.
  3. As a result, a single, trusted hardware-backed root of trust delivers a seamless login experience across different devices, operating systems, and applications.
  4. With support for both biometric- and PIN-based login, the YubiKey Bio leverages the full range of multi-factor authentication (MFA) capabilities outlined in the FIDO2 and WebAuthn standard specifications.
  5. In keeping with Yubico’s design philosophy, the YubiKey Bio will not require any batteries, drivers, or associated software.
  6. The key seamlessly integrates with the native biometric enrollment and management features supported in the latest versions of Windows 10 and Azure Active Directory, making it quick and convenient for users to adopt a phishing-resistant passwordless login flow.

“As a result of close collaboration between our engineering teams, Yubico is bringing strong hardware-backed biometric authentication to market to provide a seamless experience for our customers,” said Joy Chik, Corporate VP of Identity, Microsoft. “This new innovation will help drive adoption of safer passwordless sign-in so everyone can be more secure and productive.”

The Yubico team has worked with Microsoft in the past few years to help drive the future of passwordless authentication through the creation of the FIDO2 and WebAuthn open authentication standards.

Additionally they have built YubiKey integrations with the full suite of Microsoft products including Windows 10 with Azure Active Directory and Microsoft Edge with Microsoft Accounts. Microsoft Ignite attendees saw a live demo of passwordless sign-in to Microsoft Azure Active Directory accounts using the YubiKey Bio.

The team also promises that by early next year, enterprise users will be able to authenticate to on-premises Active Directory integrated applications and resources. And provide seamless Single Sign-On (SSO) to cloud- and SAML-based applications. To take advantage of strong YubiKey authentication in Azure Active Directory environments, users can refer to this page for more information.

On Hacker News, this news has received mixed reactions while some are in favour of the biometric authentication, others believe that keeping stronger passwords is still a better choice.

One of them commented, “1) This is an upgrade to the touch sensitive button that’s on all YubiKeys today. The reason you have to touch the key is so that if an attacker gains access to your computer with an attached Yubikey, they will not be able to use it (it requires physical presence). Now that touch sensitive button becomes a fingerprint reader, so it can’t be activated by just anyone.

2) The computer/OS doesn’t have to support anything for this added feature.”

Another user responds, “A fingerprint is only going to stop a very opportunistic attacker. Someone who already has your desktop and app password and physical access to your desktop can probably get a fingerprint off a glass, cup or something else.

I don’t think this product is as useful as it seems at first glance. Using stronger passwords is probably just as safe.”

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Fatema Patrawala
Being a Senior Content Marketing Editor at Packt Publishing, I handle vast array of content in the tech space ranging from Data science, Web development, Programming, Cloud & Networking, IoT, Security and Game development. With prior experience and understanding of Marketing I aspire to grow leaps and bounds in the Content & Digital Marketing field. On the personal front I am an ambivert and love to read inspiring articles and books on life and in general.