Money, job, and identity are all protected by passwords. However, you dislike and distrust them. The company is attempting to eliminate them completely. In Apple's next round of iPhone, iPad, and Mac software updates this fall, users will be able to log into multiple online accounts without entering passwords or relying on password managers to save and fill in credentials.

For each app or browser-based service, the technology generates a unique passkey instead of characters. Those passkeys trigger a scan of your face or fingerprints to log you in. Security risks are associated with passwords, the long-established standard for securing online accounts.

People often use the same password across multiple accounts, sign up for fake sites that log their information, or have their personal information exposed in a data breach despite experts' advice to create complex unique passwords. Although password managers beef up security, your master password can be accessed by anyone if it is stolen. 

With passkeys, Apple, Google, and other tech giants want to resolve those issues and eliminate passwords altogether. Last week at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, Darin Adler, Apple's vice president of internet technologies, said the new passwords would be easier and more secure than traditional passwords.

Using passkeys prevents reusing passwords. Both new and old Apple accounts can use passkeys. If hackers gain access to the servers of Apple or the app or website developers, they wouldn't be able to find any passcodes to steal. Since there's no password to share, they're resistant to phishing.

As Ondrej Krehel, head of cybersecurity monitoring platform SecurityScorecard, observed, 'passkeys are heavily obfuscated by the operating system.' 'This is going to deter most cybercriminals since they wouldn't find anything of use.' Before going password-free, previous versions of the standard required people to set up an initial password.

According to Andrew Shikiar, executive director and chief marketing officer of the FIDO Alliance, the new generation frees companies from that requirement and allows companies to use different authentication methods, such as biometrics, security keys, and PINs, to provide passwordless security.