By Joon Hyuk Lee, APAC Market Development Director, FIDO Alliance
SK Telecom, a leading mobile phone service provider in Korea, is taking a big step forward in terms of user authentication by adopting passkeys for their online users.
Passkeys are a replacement for passwords that provide faster, easier, and more secure sign-ins to websites and apps across a user’s devices. Unlike passwords, passkeys are always strong and phishing resistant. They eliminate the need for users to remember complex passwords and the authentication process is much faster. Passkeys are based on FIDO authentication, which is proven to be resistant to threats of phishing, credential stuffing and other remote attacks.
SK Telecom has introduced passkeys as a means of user authentication to PASS, their identity verification services with over 18 million users. Customers using iOS16 or higher devices can use the passkeys for PASS login, identity verification through PASS, and electronic signature. Depending on the device, user authentication is performed using Face ID and Touch ID. Android users can now use FIDO2 based authentication methods and perform authentication by utilizing screen locks (biometrics, PINs, patterns, etc.) provided by their devices. In the future, SK Telecom plans to make sign-ins with passkeys available to Android users as well. SK Telecom will introduce new user scenarios in a variety of ways to better protect customers’ assets and identity through the introduction of the passkeys.
[Passkey Registration Process on SK Telecom PASS]
SK Telecom Developed support for passkeys through cooperation with platform operators, and the FIDO authentication server for processing sign-ins with passkeys was developed by SK Telecom’s own technology. By actively introducing not only PASS but also various services provided by SK Telecom, they hope that many customers who use SK Telecom services will be able to use the service more conveniently and without worrying about security.
This deployment represents a new milestone in SK Telecom’s journey with FIDO. In 2019, during the FIDO Alliance Public Seminar in Korea, SK Telecom reported zero credential stuffing once the company adopted FIDO Authentication for internal usage. They also claimed that their FIDO-based biometric authentication reduced the average authentication time to less than 5 seconds, which previously took more than 30 seconds on average, when the internal users tried logging in with ID and passwords. It is great to see that they continue to innovate and now provide the benefits of FIDO Authentication to the general public.
Through this milestone, many users in Korea will be safe from various threats stemming from passwords, and SK Telecom’s movement as an innovator will have a positive impact on spreading password-less authentication not only in Korea but also globally.
To learn more about SK Telecom, please visit their corporate website. You can also download the PASS apps by visiting the App Store or Google Play.
