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Dashlane — SPY’s favorite password protection tool — is aiming to rid the digital world of passwords. They’re not trying to run themselves out of business, but rather stay ahead of the competition and embrace the newest and most secure form of online authentication: passkeys.
Dashlane was the first password manager tool to roll out passkey support in the fall of 2022, and as more websites and servers adopt them over passwords, Dashlane’s service will only become more useful.
Passkeys are pairs of related cryptographic keys generated by an authenticator app on a cellphone or a password manager like Dashlane. One key is public, essentially a username that lives in a server and is largely useless for hackers, and one is private. The private one lives on your device, within an authenticator, and is safe from prying eyes.
Every time you try to log in a server will prompt the authenticator for your private key, and you don’t need to worry about remembering or keeping passwords hidden. All you need to do is open the authenticator app on your phone to access your account.
Apple and Google have been using passkeys for data protection for years now, and Apple’s new iOS in the fall will support third-party passkey support. Enter Dashlane, one of the first password management tools that will be offering passkey support for both iOS and Android. This means Dashlane will act as the authenticator, storing passkeys for whenever you need them to access an account.
When you do try and access an account, Dashlane will know which unique passkey to suggest and you can use your device PIN, face scan, or fingerprint to securely verify it’s you and complete the login quickly.
No Memorization Aside, What Makes Passkeys Superior to Passwords?
Unlikely as it may seem, passwords can be guessed by interlopers. Especially if it’s your birthday, your wife’s middle name, or something otherwise publicly accessible. And if you’re like most people, you tend to reuse your passwords, maybe even several times across your websites and databases. So one lucky guess by a cybercriminal can leave your accounts and data exposed.
A passkey cannot be guessed — it’s a FIDO (Fast Identity Online)-standard-based cryptographical combination. And each one is unique to the website it is used for, which means phishing attempts using lookalike or spoofed websites or password requests cannot work. Just hacking into your device will not open the keychain, since Face or Touch ID is required, and they’re only stored there so there are very limited points of access. Even if someone hacked into your device, passkeys stored in Dashlane are protected by your PIN, fingerprint, Face ID, and Master Password.
Nothing is 100% foolproof, but this is about as close as you can get.
You may think your password is a secret, even a well-kept secret, but it’s one that’s shared between at least two places: you and the server you’re accessing. Unlike a password, passkeys don’t share any secret or valuable information with the server. The server only receives the public key and only you open the authenticator with the private key on your device.
So Why Aren’t Passwords Going Away Altogether?
Give it time. Before long, passwords are likely to join the 8-track, the Betamax, and the floppy disk on the ash heap of tech history. There’s no better time to be an early adopter of passkeys and cutting-edge improvements. Imagine living fully password-free, never worrying about needing to reset your account, or getting that dreaded email that there’s been a “suspicious login attempt.”
But change can be slow. Right now, there are only a few websites that support passkeys. Microsoft, eBay, Best Buy, and PayPal are among the early adopters. As data breaches become increasingly common, the evolution of data security is pointed toward a full transition away from passwords and toward passkey technology, and you’ll want to have Dashlane on your side.
Dashlane is prepared to support passkeys as more and more websites begin to use them, and they’ll continue to give the best-in-class service you’re used to getting with their password protection.
Why Dashlane?
Dashlane has been offering in-browser passkey support since September 2022, and they’re one of the very first companies to offer passkey support for both iOS and Android.
Needless to say, Dashlane is fully prepared for the passkey revolution. In the meantime, it is still the best password protection service on the market. Dashlane protects all its users’ personal data, not just passwords, with AES-256 encryption, the first publicly accessible and open cipher approved by the National Security Agency (NSA) to protect Top Secret government data.
Dashlane also uses ARGON2, the most powerful and up-to-date cryptography advancements and automatically updates its users’ vaults with constant improvements. Dashlane is also constantly seeking out and repairing vulnerabilities.
And Dashlane never sees your data. Its zero-knowledge architecture means users’ Master Passwords are never stored on Dashlane’s servers or transmitted over the internet. So even if Dashlane itself were breached, your Master Password would be safe. And in its 14 years of business, Dashlane has never been breached. Whether you’re dealing in passwords or passkeys, you want a data protection solution you can trust.
Dashlane is free for basic password management on one device, including unlimited storage and sharing. They also offer these affordable upgraded plans:
- The Advanced plan ($2.75 per month when billed annually) adds unlimited devices and Dark Web Monitoring, a feature that scans 20 billion records on the dark web and alerts you if any of your information appears there. In that event, Dashlane also provides simple steps to help fix the problem and protect your data.
- The Premium plan ($4.99 per month when billed annually), Dashlane’s most popular option, gives you everything in Free and Advanced plus a best-in-class VPN for WiFi protection.
- The Friends & Family plan ($7.49 per month when billed annually) has all the features of the Premium plan for up to 10 individual accounts, managed under one affordable plan.
Online security is all about staying ahead of the pack, whether you’re talking about hackers or competitors. Dashlane has stayed far ahead of the hackers for 14 breach-free years now, and it’s head and shoulders above the competition in preparing for the advent of passkey technology. Sign up now for deals for new customers and upgrades for Free plan users.
