Multi-factor & Risk-based Authentication , Security Operations , Video

Google's Christiaan Brand on Bringing Passkeys to the Masses

Phishing remains the number one way to compromise accounts, and Google's Christiaan Brand says passkeys have emerged as a great technical solution to this problem.

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Brand, group product manager at Google, has collaborated with Google's account security team to ensure what the FIDO Alliance has built benefits and is relevant to how Google would like to see passkeys implemented for its own accounts. Brand wants to raise awareness of passkey technology among developers, CISOs and CTOs as well as create resources for the developers about how passkeys actually work in customer environments (see: FIDO Panel: Remember, Passwordless Is All About Usability).

"Passwords are not going to go away overnight," Brand says. "They will be there as a fallback for some time. I don't think it's accurate to say that they will completely disappear over the next couple of years. But we want to get to a point where it's a rare event for a password to be used. Passkey should be the way that users sign in every day. And then, once in a while, a user comes in with a password."

In this video interview with Information Security Media Group from the FIDO Alliance's Authenticate 2022 conference, Brand also discusses:

• The biggest obstacles keeping organizations from adopting passkeys;
• How Google has facilitated passkey adoption within its own business;
• The significance of Apple, Microsoft and Google's commitment to FIDO.

Brand joined Google in November 2015. He is part of the firm's security and identity teams and focuses on reducing friction at account setup and sign-in while increasing security. Prior to Google, he co-founded financial services security firm Entersekt in 2009. Brand is a frequent industry commentator on all areas involving cybercrime and cybersecurity and is co-chair of the FIDO2 technical working group with the FIDO Alliance that seeks to standardize strong online security protocols.