Passwordless.dev is a passwordless authentication technology provider that aims to help companies improve their security as well as their user experience. Bitwarden offers a password management service that enables individuals and enterprises to automatically create hard-to-guess passwords and store them all in a secure vault.
These kinds of services aim to minimise same-password use across a variety of online services thus making it harder for hackers to gain fraudulent access to accounts. However, according to techcrunch.com, what makes Bitwarden stand out is its open-source nature, which means that it offers full transparency into its codebase while enabling allowing community members to further improve the system and to help develop new features.
With the acquisition of Passwordless.dev, Bitwarden could go one step further and contribute to a passwordless future. This isn’t the only company to look into passwordless authentication lately, as key players such as Apple, Google and Microsoft partnered in 2022 to support a new password-free sign-in system named WebAuthn. Separately, Apple introduced a new feature called Passkey, which allows users to leverage their Apple devices to log in to online services without passwords.
Bitwarden was already offering passwordless authentication support through a biometric login system for its own apps. By tapping into Passwordless.dev’s capabilities, the company aims to make it easier for developers to implement native biometric sign-in systems into their software.
The password management platform has already launched a new system named Passwordless.dev by Bitwarden which allows third-party developers to include biometric sign-in systems such as Touch ID, Face ID, and Windows Hello into their apps.
Company officials cited by techcrunch.com revealed that many enterprises have business applications that still rely on passwords for authentication. These enterprises want to provide users with passwordless experiences but require a solution that can be implemented quickly and securely.
The system will remain free for use during a beta phase through Q1 2023, after which it will become accessible via paid plans correlated to usage levels and available features. According to techcrunch.com, Passwordless.dev will continue to be offered to developers independently of other Bitwarden products. Bitwarden has not disclosed how much it cost to acquire the Swedish startup or how many employees it will retain following this acquisition.
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