To stay ahead in the ever-evolving digital landscape, convenience and security must go hand-in-hand. Like other leading tech companies, Samsung has embraced cutting-edge passwordless authentication by integrating passkeys, ensuring a seamless and secure user experience.
As the next-generation solution, passkeys not only elevate security but most importantly make the login experience smoother. This article will delve into what exactly passkeys are, how they work, and why Samsung is pushing their usage across their ecosystems.
It further discusses where and how you can use them on your Samsung devices, including the integration in future products from the company and how Samsung Pass and Samsung Knox Matrix are driving innovation in Samsung security.
A Passkey is a cryptographic key pair designed to replace passwords. It consists of a public key stored on a server and a private key securely held on the user's device. Unlike passwords, Passkeys cannot be phished in an attack or exposed in a data breach.
Whenever a user tries to log in, the device will sign a challenge given by the server using a private key. The server will then verify the signed challenge using the public key. Samsung's passkey technology integrates biometric verification, such as fingerprints or facial recognition, making the login process not only secure but also incredibly convenient.
Samsung Pass, the company’s password manager, has been a leader in biometric security for years, utilizing fingerprints, iris, or facial recognition for secure logins. With the release of One UI 6, Samsung Pass has evolved from a password manager into a more comprehensive gateway for digital security, allowing users to unlock their accounts effortlessly without the need for passwords.
With Samsung Pass joining Apple's iCloud Keychain and Google's Password Manager in supporting passkeys, it will let users store and sync their passkeys across devices. This will provide an all-in-one solution not only for storing passwords and passkeys but also for one-time passwords and IDs.
Samsung doesn’t yet widely sync passkeys across all devices like Apple’s iCloud Keychain, though they are moving in that direction.
With passkeys stored securely on the device and not synced elsewhere, Samsung Pass offers enhanced privacy. This functionality is a direct response to Apple passkeys via iCloud Keychain, and Samsung aims to position Samsung Pass as a competitive alternative.
Security remains a central focus for Samsung, and Samsung Knox, a background security service, plays a key role in ensuring data protection.
Samsung extended this service with Knox Matrix to let users gain multi-device security and share all passkeys across different Samsung devices without security compromise.
Knox Matrix builds a secure Trust Chain within the devices that are on the network. If an attack is detected, devices intelligently monitor each other and send notifications across the ecosystem, allowing shared devices to lock compromised devices to protect the rest of the network. This new form of security architecture somewhat echoes how Apple's iCloud Keychain can share passkeys across devices within the same account.
Samsung’s move into passkeys reflects a broader strategy aimed at:
Samsung Pass already lets users create and use passkeys on Galaxy smartphones and tablets to log in to websites, apps, and other services that support FIDO based authentication. Already available on devices running the latest version of One UI, users can log into a website or application through biometric authentication, such as fingerprints or face recognition, seamlessly and securely.
Beyond this, Samsung is extending the use of passkeys. Starting in 2025, Samsung will expand the integration of passkeys across more devices, such as Tizen-based TVs, refrigerators with AI Family Hub™, and AI-powered home appliances. This will easily let users log in securely to their smart home devices and even their TVs using mobile QR code scanning for web browser-based logins.
Follow these simple steps to create and use a passkey on your Samsung Galaxy smartphone or tablet:
