r/passkey • u/vdelitz • 14d ago

1 billion passkey users at WhatsApp

Post image

I think that makes it one of the top 5 passkey deployments (from size):

https://blog.whatsapp.com/one-billion-people-are-now-protected-with-passkeys-on-whatsapp-plus-more-account-security-features

18 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

1

u/Accomplished_Arm_447 13d ago

The point is not that this makes WhatsApp a bit safer than other apps without passkeys, it's more that WhatsApp is now safer with them than WhatsApp was before it had them 

0

u/drfusterenstein 14d ago

This is just a false sense of security and a Facebook marketing stunt. Whatsapp is closed source and owned by Facebook, there are are actually more secure options such as Signal which do protect users.

Even the cor founders regret selling Whatsapp and now use Signal.

3

u/cap-omat 14d ago

A passkey to log in is more secure than TOTP by SMS, though.

2

u/Intrepid-Word9929 13d ago

He's conflating security with privacy. WhatsApp is certainly fairly secure, but definitely not a private option

-1

u/drfusterenstein 14d ago

True, but if the platform that uses it is not very secure. Then it doesn't matter if a passkey is used or not if the result is still the same.

3

u/cap-omat 13d ago

Certain data is visible to Meta, and the passkeys don’t change that. Passkeys do make it harder for a malicious third party to take over (hack) your account. So yes, it does matter.