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WE’LL LEAVE THE BACK DOOR OPEN

Amazon Now Can Use Passkeys But Your Account Still Is Not Secure

Oooh, shiny new locks!

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A close-up photograph of various aged padlocks, some rusted and others showing inscriptions, hanging tightly together on a metal wire.
Photo by marcos mayer on Unsplash

I saw that Amazon now supports Passkeys. You might have read just enough about that to think it is wonderful and that you should rush to secure your account.

Sure, do that. But your account will be just as vulnerable to hackers as it always been.

I explained all this at great length in an semi-geekish article I wrote last year.

If you don’t want to read that (and who could blame you?), here is the quick and dirty extract:

Websites are going to retain existing passwords. They will have to, because it could be decades before every user will have the hardware and software necessary to use passkeys.

That means that guessing your Amazon password is still a way to hack your account. It means that hijacking your phone number is still a great way to convince Amazon or just about anyone else that “you” (though not you) forgot your password and…

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Anthony (Tony/Pcunix) Lawrence đź‘€
Anthony (Tony/Pcunix) Lawrence đź‘€

Written by Anthony (Tony/Pcunix) Lawrence đź‘€

Retired Unix Consultant. I write tech and humor mostly but sometimes other things. See my Lists if your interests are specific.

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