Implement Passkeys (edited)

AzMurph

I've been getting up to speed with passkeys over the past week with a few of my accounts now starting to support it. Once I got the hang of it, I really like it. And once you can remove the password all together, it seems really secure. Are passkeys on any short to medium term implementation roadmap?

Coach Natalie

Hello @AzMurph,

Thanks for posting your inquiry to the Community!

I'm not aware of any plans to implement Passkeys, however, I'm not sure that we'd even be able to. When researching Passkeys, it looks like it's an authentication platform of Google's to be able to access their own products, such as Gmail and YouTube. Since Simplifi is not a Google product, I don't think this would be doable.

With that said, would you mind providing a bit more details as to what specifically you're looking for with Simplifi? Thanks!

-Coach Natalie

AzMurph

Sounds like you haven't been looking into it yet so it'll be awhile. Passkeys are not a Google product. If you just did a web search you would see a lot of Google association to it because they just enabled it for Google accounts last week. It's supported by Google, Apple, and Microsoft to replace passwords. It's not something that any company owns or controls.

Here's a better link to start to get educated on it. I'm not an expert on it by any means, but have used it on a few accounts that have enabled it and it's pretty great from a user perspective. And since it's supposed to be more secure than passwords and two factor, double bonus. But, it's early days.

https://fidoalliance.org/passkeys/

RobWilk

Passkeys are supported, for example, by Microsoft Edge (which i'm now using primarily on my Mac)… As a user, It works like this, on a site like google (or even Best Buy supports them), on login it asks for a fingerprint (or screen unlock) rather than a password. No passwords are exchanged, somewhere a secure 'key' was set up when the account was first installed on that machine.

Now here's a slight negative, for someone like me, who has destroyed computers and swapped out cell phones during a mental health episode, I could be left without a way to login to accounts.

Edit: I should disclose something by saying thank you to best buy for many free products that they've given me to review since 2016.

AzMurph

For that case of changing devices, it backs up across your devices depending on what vault you use. So, your iCloud, Google account, or Microsoft Authenticator would hold the passkeys to be transferred to the new device. But I expect you would need another device (like laptop, phone, tablet) or to have a recovery code just like now with two factor authentication. I've read that 1Password and Dashlane are about to begin support of it too so that would imply all password managers like Bitwarden, etc would also get there. Here is one of 1Passwords blog post about it.

https://blog.1password.com/passkeys-vs-passwords-differences/

Anyway — I don't mean to push it too much. I'm not a tech person. I just enabled a few of accounts with it and really like using it and the idea of it. it's early so it'll be a few years for this to become standard, but financial information seems like a great place to start. On the ones I've enabled so far, they are keeping passwords as a backup for now, but I expect in a couple of years they'll then start removing the passwords once they get the majority of users on the passkeys and get the kinks worked out.

Coach Natalie

Hello @AzMurph,

Thanks for confirming and providing additional info!

Although I'm not aware of any plans amongst our Product Team to implement Passkeys, the best way to get the request in front of them is by creating an Idea post so other users can vote on it. With that said, I did go ahead and turn this post into an Idea post requesting Passkeys.

I hope this helps!

-Coach Natalie

AzMurph

Thanks for doing that. Much appreciated!

bharing

Implement Passkey support to log in to Simplifi

RobWilk

This idea exists here, it has 5 votes as of this writing:

[removed link to merged thread]

RiversideKid

I would certainly feel better if the site required passkeys rather than passwords. The sign in process is incredibly easy with a passkey manager like 1password and MUCH more secure than using password. Different sites implement it differently, so please do not go the CVS route which seems to rely upon cookies, but something like the Google route where I can click "use passkey" would be better.

MtnCreed

Passkey is widely considered the future of authentication. It may seem simple, but incorporating it into Quicken's web authentication would be incredibly convenient for users and match Quicken's push to become a modern, intuitive platform.

SRC54

I have set up a few mostly with google accounts and they have been hit or miss for me. I too use Apple products. I think it will likely be the future, so I will upvote it.

By the way, this morning with 4.29 update, I see that I was signed out and signing back in took a while. Apple never wants to find my password although it's there (and it is one of those long impossible to remember ones); it doesn't find it, so maybe a Passkey would be easier.

I am not so concerned about security as I don't have my name tied to my account nor can anyone see my account numbers in Simplifi or transfer funds within Simplifi. I am sure many on here will tell me I am wrong about this, however.

RobWilk

The thing about a passkey, the first time you sign in (without a passkey) you need a password, then it gives you a passkey, which is basically a "saved password" ("keep me logged in") that requires either fingerprints or face id to use (just like my chrome passwords are set up right now). I don't really get the point of passkeys yet.

-Rob

SRC54

@RobWilk Yes, and if you don't have fingerprint or faceid on your Mac (the new Macs have it), you have to use your phone, and I haven't gotten it to work yet.

RobWilk

@SRC54 To sign into Apple Services (like App Store Connect) if i want to use a passkey, I need to use my iPhone, it doesn't seem to accept browser based passkeys. So, you're not missing out on that. Websites like CVS (with chrome anyway) store passkeys in the browser and use the fingerprint reeader on the mac.

SRC54

@RobWilk Yep, and I have created some passkeys but not using them much. I have spent much of the day reconfiguring my Mac because for the second time since I've had it, my user info got scrambled and both times it was with Simplifi. It just wouldn't log me in on Safari telling me my password was bad, and like an idiot I changed it, but it wasn't the problem. I could log on on the phone and on Chromium. So I had to create a new user name and connect to the Cloud, fiddle with all my settings and get everything back where I want it. Then I delete the old user.

I wonder if it is using a Safari App that is the problem. Such a waste of time.

RiversideKid

Passkeys are super simple with 1password.com. We use 1password on our Windows, and macOS computers and Android phones. The password functions and passkey functions are in sync and are not tied to any computer or browser. The dashboard tells us when new sites support passkeys, MFA, 2FA, etc. (I do not work for 1password, have just been really happy with the improved functionality over browser based solutions. Although I do work as a desktop support person and we use a business 1password account at work.)

RobWilk

1Password would probably never work for me. It requires a subscription. I have (seemingly as a result of periodic thyroid issues) periods where I have financial difficulties and wind up in a hospital for up to a month, and during that time my subscription may not get paid, and all my passwords would likely be forgotten during that month, which might not be good.

-Rob