Greetings from Terminal A at EWR, where I'm absolutely going to need my or passport or Global Entry card to come home. Regular drivers licenses are only going to be valid IDs for air travel until May 7. Plan accordingly.
In the news: Microsoft is officially going passwordless by default. On the surface, it’s a welcome step toward a safer, simpler future. Passkeys — supported by Apple, Google, and Microsoft under the FIDO Alliance banner — promise to eliminate the phishing risks, credential leaks, and attack vectors that passwords have always invited.
But there’s a catch.
If you want to go truly passwordless with a Microsoft account, you must use the Microsoft Authenticator app. No Authy. No Google Authenticator. No Yubikey-only setup. Without Microsoft’s own app on your phone, your account retains a traditional password, defeating many of the security benefits that passkeys are meant to deliver.
It’s a baffling choice from a company that claims to champion interoperability and open standards. The FIDO2 protocol is designed to support a wide range of authenticators, including hardware tokens and platform biometrics. Microsoft’s decision to wall off the full experience to its own app undermines the promise of a universal passwordless standard.
Still, the move is a net positive. Making passkeys the default for new accounts and nudging existing users to adopt them is good security hygiene. Passkeys are harder to phish, easier to use, and fundamentally more secure than the shared secrets they replace.
If Microsoft’s long-term vision is to kill the password, mandating its own app feels like an awkward speed bump on the way to that goal. That's the price of progress, I guess.
The password is dying. Long live the passkey.
As always your thoughts and comments are both welcome and encouraged. Just reply to this email. -s
P.S. ¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named he covers tech and business for , is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular . He's a , and the creator of the popular, free online course, . Follow or visit .
