Bitwarden acquires passwordless.dev
The news was released recently that Bitwarden has made the acquisition of a startup called passwordless.dev, who specializes in helping developers to integrate passwordless authentication technology through your software.
passwordless.dev easily integrates with existing systems and allows developers to bring WebAuthn users with just a few lines of code. For companies looking to modernize existing internal applications with passwordless authentication, Passwordless.dev reduces cost and complexity by providing an agile, turnkey solution.
Like other password management services, Bitwarden is designed to allow individuals and businesses to automatically create hard-to-guess passwords and store them in a secure vault.
The goal here is to help Internet users not reuse the same predictable password across all of their online services. Bitwarden's main selling point, however, is that it's open source (or at least available as open source), which means it promises full transparency into the codebase, while still allowing the community to contribute and Help develop new features.
The company also took advantage this anouncement to reveal that he raised Serie A funds in 2019, without disclosing the amount.
The Series A fundraising falls into the category of development capital. These operations are intended to finance the acceleration of the company's growth, both internally and externally.
To consider a Series A fundraiser, you must have a product or service on the market that generates interest, as well as development prospects and a clear vision for the future. At this point, the business is already generating income. Series A is mainly for companies that want to expand in their market at a national level.
The funds raised in a Series A are usually a few million euros.
The importance of acquiring Passwordless.dev it is because using a password is the most popular method to access an account. Which today faces several challenges, including memorization, which is becoming increasingly relevant due to the proliferation of the number of services that require a password and the compromise it can be subject to.
Given the situation, the main technological brands Google, Apple and Microsoft have opted for a passwordless approach, whereupon, with the acquisition of Passwordless.dev, Bitwarden adds to this.
Recall that last year Apple, Google and Microsoft teamed up to support a new passwordless sign-in standard called WebAuthn, while Apple separately introduced a new feature called Passkey that allows users to use their Apple device to login to online services without password.
Access keys are based on the Web Authentication API (WebAuthn), a standard that uses public-key cryptography instead of passwords to authenticate users to websites and apps, and are stored on the device instead of in a Web server. Numeric password replacement uses Touch ID or Face ID for biometric verification, which means that instead of having to enter a long string of characters, an app or website you sign in to will send a password authentication request to your phone.
Bitwarden would like to capitalize on this trend. in online security, which seeks to put passwords in the history books (compromised passwords are responsible for most companies, after all).
Bitwarden already offers some support for passwordless authentication, such as biometric logins for Bitwarden's own apps, while also supporting two-factor authentication (2FA) physical security keys such as YubiKey. But by taking Passwordless.dev under its wing, Bitwarden wants to make it easier for developers to integrate native biometric login into their software, while allowing companies to modernize their existing applications that currently rely on passwords.
Source: https://bitwarden.com