'Not only do we want to allow passwordless to become a part of our future, we want to actively drive and help both businesses and consumers into that passwordless world.' What they're saying: 'We believe that passkeys or passwordless is that next evolution of staying safe online,' Shiner said. Passage just emerged from stealth mode in February with $4 million in funding. The companies did not disclose how much 1Password is paying for the acquisition.Passage co-founder Cole Hecht said the companies have 'some exciting plans' for developing the product further in the future, but declined to share specifics.Moving forward, the companies plan to bring Passage's enterprise authentication tools into 1Password's offerings. He said 1Password landed on Passage because of the startup's hyper-focus on web authentication technology, which powers passkeys. 1Password CEO Jeff Shiner told Axios his company had been looking to acquire a passkey company for the better part of the last year.

It has about 1,000 clients using its tools now who will carry over to 1Password.

Tying login credentials to devices adds another layer to fend off hackers who can easily guess people's passwords, or find them on the dark web after a data breach.ĭetails: Passage builds tools that allows developers or businesses to build passkey capabilities on their websites or applications.

Companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google have started supporting passkey logins, which allows people to login to their accounts using biometric data or device PINs tied to their phones or laptops.

82% of data breaches start because of human error, like poor password hygiene, according to Verizon.

The big picture: The cybersecurity industry has been doubling down in recent years on ways to ditch passwords. Why it matters: The acquisition, which will be announced later today, allows the widely-used password management platform to build tools for consumers and businesses to manage passkeys, a popular alternative to phrase-based passwords. 1Password is preparing for a password-less future by acquiring Austin-based ID authentication startup Passage, the company first told Axios.

1password web login