For its twelfth edition, the first Thursday in May, the ” world password day “Was renamed” World access key day “(” World Passkey Day “) by the Fido Alliance (for” Fast IDentity Online “, in English). The latter aims to develop and promote authentication standards that ” contribute to reducing excessive dependence of the world to passwords ».
Microsoft, in line with the announcement of the Fido Alliance, took the opportunity to announce the continuation of its ” transition to a world without passwords by introducing several significant changes “, Starting with the fact that the new Microsoft accounts will now be” without default password » (« passwordless by default », And vo).
New users will have several safer authentication options (such as biometrics, PIN codes or safety keys to connect to their account), ” And they will never need to save a password ». Existing users can go to their account settings to delete their password, says Microsoft.
99 % connect to their Microsoft account using Windows Hello
The company stresses that ” Today, more than 99 % of people who connect to their Windows devices with their Microsoft account do it using Windows Hello “, The service she launched in 2015 to get rid of passwords and allow her users to connect in a secure manner to their accounts using their face, their fingerprints or their PIN code.
Microsoft underlines that ” Because they do not grasp complex character or codes, users who connect using a Passkey succeed three times better to access their account than password users (about 98 % against 32 %) » :
« last year, we introduced Passkeys support for Microsoft accounts in our consumer public applications and services such as Xbox and Copilot, and we are recording almost a million Passkeys per day today. »
35 % of respondents have at least one account compromised because of their password
The Fido Alliance for its part publishes a survey advancing that last year, ” More than 35 % of people had at least one of their compromised accounts due to password vulnerabilities » :
« In addition, 47 % of consumers will abandon their purchases if they have forgotten their password for this particular account. This is important for the adoption of access keys, because 54 % of people familiar with access keys consider them more practical than passwords, and 53 % think they offer greater security. »
It also notes that 74 % of consumers know the keys to access, and 69 % use it ” on at least one of their accounts ». Among these, 38 % say they authorize them as much as possible. And more than half of consumers believe that access keys are both more secure (53 %) and more practical (54 %) than passwords.
The surveymonkey online survey was carried out from April 13 to 14, 2025 with a world sample of 1,389 adults aged 18 and over in the United States, the United Kingdom, China, South Korea and Japan.
Remains that said that the expression ” World access key day “Will flourish in France.
