Passwordless authentication consolidation: Bitwarden buys Passwordless.dev

Executives at password manager Bitwarden say they have bought Passwordless.dev, maker of a framework that smooths the process of building passkeys and FIDO2 WebAuthn functions. Financial details of the buyout have not been made public.

The joined company has been branded Passwordless.dev by Bitwarden.

Executives at Bitwarden get a number of potential market advantages, including a more comprehensive product line of expediting passkeys and passwordless authentication tools for use on existing and future apps.

Bitwarden boasts two passwordless products in the market today, biometric logins for FaceID, fingerprint and Windows Hello; and Security keys, including Duo, YubiKey and FIDO2 technologies.

The company doubled down on native device biometrics with a feature update late last year.

Passwordless.dev will remain a development service enabling coders to create quick and secure Web sign-on experiences in Web apps – using face biometrics, fingerprints and security keys — without having to learn W3C specifications. Prior to the announcement, the firms had created turnkey software on WebAuthn and FIDO2 passwordless standards.

An API hides development complexity presented by WebAuthn, according to the rebranded company. It claims people can be up and running with WebAuthn in minutes compared to many days.

Bitwarden has opened a beta program for the joint open-source turnkey product (called Bitwarden Passwordless.dev), not so much testing services and products but gauging market acceptance.

The program is a multi-tiered price marketed at developers, those in the enterprise security community and enterprise executives.

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  Bitwarden  |  FIDO2  |  passwordless authentication