The classical and proven model for security measures in web browsers consists of a single factor. Passwords offer a certain degree of protection. What if this concept is changed forever? All Hail WebAuthn, it can change.
Passwords!! Manage Carefully
In the conventional way of dealing with password have the following concerns:
- Sometimes it gets difficult to choose the right password.
- Combinations of letters/numbers/special characters/ case combinations are difficult to remember. Some people do write the passwords in notes for remembering which makes that vulnerable to misuse.
- In recent years, data breach, hacking has been so common that the password management has become a difficult task for the internet browsers.
With the immense advancement in technology, this traditional way of dealing with the password is on a verge of a new door. Internet standards organization – W3C has launched new specifications called WebAuthn to replace the use of passwords.
Features Of WebAuthn
The main aspects of this new specification are
- The idea of WebAuthn is based on biometric authentication like:
- Authentication through fingerprint
- Security by iris reading
- Access protection by using face scanners
- Use of easy PIN
- Password Killing wearable
- It will contain an API exposing services to implement the new proposal.
- This API will register the authentications through these services.
- This new authentication tokens or method will be stored persistently in services in the same way as the password.
Advantages Of New Specifications
The Internet has become prone to threats for data stealing in the recent decade. Password along is not a safe approach to secure data from the rush of hacks and scams.
As an alternative, this new approach can be a substantial safeguard for data. The advantages are:
- It removes the user intervention and user headache to manage the password
- Being biometric the data can be protected by directly linked with user biometric features making it more strictly protective. It detects the person through biological input like facial mapping, iris scan etc. These are more secure than legacy password authentication.
Recent Moves By Browser
Due to its potentially powerful encrypted nature, most of the browser organizations are inclined to adopt this idea into their browser products. Firefox and Firefox have started to incorporate WebAuthn support for their browser.
Google Chrome being most popular in internet browser family has designed the roadmap to add this into the browser. Safary – a product of Apple is yet to bring support for WebAuthn.
As a replacement for legacy password-based authentication, this move can be a revolutionary step to create the more secured internet. But there still some time to go in eliminating traditional password mechanism.
Though different browser has started to support WebAuthn this system is still in proposal stage demanding more round of testing to make that foolproof and protective from possible threats.
It is important to handle the biological inputs properly. This will ensure the data privacy. To know more details about this topic you can search the net and check it!