Passkeys gain traction with adoptions by Naver in SK, CityUHK in Hong Kong

Passkeys continue to gain momentum in the push for mainstream adoption of passwordless technology. Cited by many as a trend to watch in 2025, passkey predictions are already bearing out with deployments in South Korea and Hong Kong.

Naver offers passkey authentication with face or finger biometrics

Passkeys have arrived in South Korea in a big way, with major online platform Naver introducing a passkey login option.

Korea Bizwire reports that Naver’s platform, which offers a similar suite of services as Google and has more than 42 million registered accounts, now allows users to authenticate for login using facial recognition or fingerprints instead of passwords. The biometrics are stored on a user’s device, to allow for easy repeat login that eliminates the need to enter passwords.

For now, Passkey Login is only available on PC and mobile web, but Naver plans to expand the biometrics program to its mobile app in the first half of 2025.

The move is reportedly driven by a desire to offer more security and convenience, and it is not Naver’s first move to address privacy concerns. The company’s Privacy Enhancement Reward (PER) program, a first-of-its-kind initiative rewards users who report vulnerabilities or privacy-related issues. In 2024, the company received 268 reports, of which 91 received rewards.

CityUHK accounts linked to iAM Smart platform for passwordless login

City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is looking to transition to passwordless login. A blog notice from the institution says that as of November 2024, CityUHK users registered for an iAM Smart account – Hong Kong’s personalized digital services platform – can link it to their CityUHK accounts for more convenient login.

That means CityUHK users can access a variety of government services with one biometric login.

Per the blog, CityUHK is the first institution in Hong Kong to implement iAM Smart within its authentication framework. “Through the integration of iAM Smart and the CityUHK SSO platform, users can log in to systems such as AIMS, Canvas, or Microsoft 365 using their Face ID or fingerprint on their mobile phones.”

Bitwarden gains 10M users as daily passkey creation grows 550%

Bitwarden, a large provider of login management tools, notes in a release how trends in passwordless authentication spurred “significant growth and product innovation in 2024.”

The year saw a 550 percent growth in daily passkey creation from 2023 to 2024, with nearly 1.1 million passkeys created in the final quarter alone. It also saw Bitwarden surpass 10 million users and expand its reach to over 180 countries. The company now supports over 50,000 business customers worldwide.

Bitwarden credits those numbers in part to enhanced passkey capabilities and rapid passkey adoption. Users and enterprises can now create, store and manage passkeys within user vaults, enable passkey-based two-factor authentication (2FA), integrate passkeys with SSO solutions, and more.

“Advancements in open standards like FIDO2 and WebAuthn have supported this growth, enabling streamlined logins and mitigating risks from phishing and password reuse,” it says. “Today, over 15 billion online platforms are passkey-enabled, double last year’s figures. Bitwarden has helped accelerate this industry shift through collaborations with the FIDO Alliance to develop passkey portability specs, and with Microsoft to integrate passkeys into Windows 11.”

Microsoft leaned hard into passkeys in 2024, declaring the end of the password era. Reporting 7,000 blocked password attacks per second, the company stated its intention to transition a billion users to passkeys, saying “our ultimate goal is to remove passwords completely and have accounts that only support phishing-resistant credentials.”

Article Topics

biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  Bitwarden  |  FIDO2  |  Hong Kong  |  Naver  |  passkeys  |  passwordless authentication  |  South Korea