The National Cyber Security Centre is recommending passkeys as the security gold standard online.

The GCHQ run security centre says passwords are no longer resilient enough for today’s online world and advise consumers to migrate to passkeys wherever possible.

Passkeys are a secure login using fingerprints, facial recognition, or PIN numbers. When creating an account, your device brings forward a unique cryptographic pair which will be saved on your web server. These are safer and phishing resistant.

The National Cyber Security Centre says the majority of cyberharms to individuals start with criminals stealing login details. This makes the adoption of passkeys a ‘huge leap forward’ in boosting resilience to phishing attacks.

New data from Google shows the UK is leading the way on passkeys, with 50% of active UK users having at least one passkey registered.

Director for National Resilience, Jonathan Ellison, said: “Adopting passkeys where you can is a strong step towards a safer, simpler login experience.

“As we aim to accelerate our cyber defences at scale, moving to passkeys is something all of us can do to improve the security of everyday digital services and be prepared for modern and future threats.”

The government is rolling out passkeys to all of its digital services.

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