New Microsoft Accounts Are Now Passwordless By Default

Microsoft announced yesterday that it’s making new Microsoft accounts passwordless by default. When creating a new Microsoft account, users will be given several passwordless options for signing into their account, including passkeys.

The company announced the news yesterday on the first “World Passkey Day,” which replaces the previous World Password Day call to action from the FIDO Alliance. As a close collaborator to the open industry association alongside Apple, Google, Amazon, and other Big Tech companies, Microsoft has been playing a key role in democratizing passwordless authentication like passkeys, which have been supported for Microsoft accounts since last year.

According to Microsoft, passkey sign-ins are eight times faster than a password and multifactor authentication. Passkeys let users sign in to a service using their face, fingerprint, or PIN, and Microsoft said that it’s now seeing nearly a million passkeys registered every day.

In late March, Microsoft also started rolling out a new sign-in user experience for Microsoft accounts that prioritizes passwordless methods for sign-in and sign-up. “Instead of showing you all the possible ways for you to sign in, we automatically detect the best available method on your account and set that as the default,” the company explained yesterday.

To increase security, the software giant also continues to encourage users who have set up passwordless options for signing into their Microsoft account to delete their existing passwords. “Last year, we observed a staggering 7,000 password attacks per second (more than double the rate from 2023)”, Microsoft said, citing its Microsoft Digital Defense Report for 2024. “As passkeys become the new standard, expect increased pressure from cyberattackers on any accounts still protected by passwords or other phishable sign-in methods,” the company added.