At the White House Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection summit, Microsoft announced its collaboration with the Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) Alliance. They have contributed design inputs which are being incorporated into the FIDO 2.0 specifications. FIDO 2.0 is being incorporated into Windows 10 and is already available in the Windows 10 Technical Preview. This allows individuals to authenticate to their computers without a password.
Microsoft has joined the FIDO alliance and by working with an industry standard instead of their own proprietary means, it is a win for consumers. Interoperability across devices and systems gives FIDO greater chance of being adopted and increases the convenience for users.
Our current implementation in the Windows 10 Technical Preview reflects our inputs into the FIDO 2.0 Specification Technical Working Group and members of the Windows Insider Program can start evaluating it right away. The current Technical Preview build enables a number of enterprise scenarios and it showcases our integration with Windows 10 sign-in, Azure Active Directory, and access to major SaaS services like Office 365 Exchange Online, Salesforce, Citrix, Box, Concur, just to name a few. With Windows 10, for the very first time Windows devices and Microsoft-owned and partner SaaS services supported by Azure Active Directory authentication can be accessed end-to-end using an enterprise-grade two-factor authentication solution – all without a password. Windows 10 will also include Active Directory integration for on-premise scenarios and Microsoft Account integration for our consumer Microsoft services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, and more.
I’ll be excited to test out the Active Directory integration for improved security on-premises. Microsoft originally talked about moving past the password back in November during its Windows 10 enterprise features event and before that in a security blog post.
