WhatsApp customers on Android can say goodbye to insecure and annoying SMS two-factor authentication. The Meta-owned firm announced on X (previously Twitter) that it’s rolling out assist for a passwordless passkey characteristic to all Android customers. The brand new safety choice permits WhatsApp customers to make use of their system’s face, fingerprint, or pin safety to unlock and entry their accounts — following Google’s lead when it started prompting users last week to create passkeys.
Passkeys had been beforehand being examined by WhatsApp in its beta channel, however it’s now coming to common customers of the app on Android. We’ve reached out to Meta about iOS compatibility in addition to different questions, however the firm has not responded presently.
With WhatsApp including passkey assist, it’s a small step on the highway towards by no means having to memorize a password that might probably be stolen in a knowledge breach or compromised by phishing. That doesn’t imply WhatsApp’s 2 billion-plus customers are utterly protected against all digital threats, however it ought to assist make issues simpler and safer for each those that have already got good password habits and those that nonetheless set their passwords to “12345.” (Unusual, I’ve bought the identical mixture on my baggage.)