Passkeys Are Here. Most WordPress Security Plugins Haven't Noticed.

Passwords have been the weakest link in website security since the beginning. Phishing attacks, credential stuffing, data breaches. The problem is not that users pick bad passwords. The problem is that passwords exist at all. Passkeys change that completely, and 2026 is the year they finally go mainstream.

The Password Problem

Here is the uncomfortable truth about passwords: they are a shared secret. You know your password. The website knows your password (or a hash of it). That means there is something to steal.

Phishing works because an attacker can create a fake login page and trick you into typing your password. Once you do, they have it. Database breaches work because passwords (or their hashes) are stored on servers. When attackers compromise the server, they get everyone's credentials. Credential stuffing works because people reuse passwords. One breach means attackers can try those credentials on every other site.

Two factor authentication helps, but it is a bandage on a broken system. You are still entering a password. You are still vulnerable to phishing, just with an extra step. Real time phishing toolkits can capture your 2FA codes as you type them and replay them instantly.

The fundamental architecture is flawed. We have been trying to make passwords more secure for decades. The answer was never to add more steps. The answer was to eliminate the shared secret entirely.

What Passkeys Actually Are

Passkeys use public key cryptography instead of passwords. When you set up a passkey, your device creates two keys: a private key that never leaves your device and a public key that gets sent to the website. When you log in, the website sends a challenge. Your device signs it with the private key. The website verifies the signature with the public key.

There is no password to steal because there is no shared secret. The private key is locked to your device and protected by biometrics (Face ID, fingerprint, Windows Hello) or your device PIN. The public key on the server is useless to attackers because it can only verify signatures, not create them.

Phishing becomes impossible. Even if an attacker creates a fake login page, passkeys are bound to the original website domain. Your device will not authenticate to the wrong site. This is built into the protocol at a fundamental level.

The technology behind passkeys is called WebAuthn, part of the FIDO2 standard developed by the FIDO Alliance (Fast Identity Online) in partnership with the W3C. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are all founding members. This is not some niche technology. It is the agreed upon future of authentication, backed by the biggest tech companies on the planet.

Why 2026 Is the Tipping Point

Passkeys have been technically possible for years, but adoption was slow. The infrastructure was not ready. That changed.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft now sync passkeys across devices through iCloud Keychain, Google Password Manager, and Windows Hello. This solved the biggest user experience problem. You can create a passkey on your iPhone and use it on your Mac automatically. Cross platform passkeys work through QR codes. You can authenticate on your laptop using a passkey stored on your phone.

Major services are pushing passkeys hard. PayPal, eBay, Best Buy, Kayak, and hundreds of others now support passkey login. GitHub rolled out passkey support. So did Amazon, Shopify, and DocuSign. The ecosystem reached critical mass.

Research shows a 32% reduction in password reset tickets for organizations that adopt passkeys. Lower SMS OTP costs. Better login success rates. Passkeys are not just more secure. They are actually easier to use than passwords plus 2FA.

What Most WordPress Plugins Get Wrong

Most WordPress security plugins are still fighting the last war. They focus on rate limiting brute force attacks, blocking suspicious IPs, and adding two factor authentication. These are all good things. But they are all working around the fundamental problem instead of solving it.

In my experience, very few WordPress security plugins support passkeys at all. The ones that do often implement it as a secondary option buried in advanced settings. The assumption is still that passwords are primary and everything else is an add on.

The reality is that passkeys should be the default login method. Passwords should be the fallback, not the other way around. If your security plugin does not support WebAuthn, you are stuck with authentication technology from the 1990s while the rest of the web moves on.

Synced vs Device Bound Passkeys

There are two types of passkeys, and understanding the difference matters.

Synced passkeys are stored in your cloud account (iCloud, Google, Microsoft) and sync across your devices. They are convenient and survive device loss. If you lose your phone, your passkeys are still available on your other devices or can be recovered through your cloud account.

Device bound passkeys never leave the physical device they were created on. Hardware security keys like YubiKeys use device bound passkeys. They are recommended for high security scenarios because the private key literally cannot be extracted, even with physical access to the device.

For most WordPress sites, synced passkeys provide the right balance of security and usability. For sites with elevated security requirements (financial, healthcare, government), device bound passkeys on hardware security keys add an extra layer of protection.

The Security Difference

Let me be specific about what passkeys protect against.

Phishing attacks: impossible. Passkeys are cryptographically bound to the website domain. A fake login page cannot request a passkey signature for the real site. This is not a best practice or recommendation. It is mathematically enforced.

Credential stuffing: impossible. There are no credentials to stuff. Each passkey is unique to one website. You cannot take a passkey from one breach and use it on another site.

Database breaches: low impact. The server only stores public keys. If attackers steal your public key, they cannot log in with it. They would need your private key, which is locked on your device.

Man in the middle attacks: impossible. The authentication protocol includes challenge response verification that prevents replay attacks and interception.

Compare this to passwords plus SMS 2FA, where all of these attacks have documented successful cases. Passkeys are not an incremental improvement. They are a fundamentally different security model.

The Transition Period

We are in a transition period right now. Not everyone has devices that support passkeys. Not everyone is comfortable with new authentication methods. You need to support both passkeys and traditional login during this time.

The smart approach is to offer passkeys as the primary option while keeping passwords plus 2FA as a fallback. Encourage users to set up passkeys. Make it easy. But do not force anyone who is not ready.

Over the next few years, passwords will fade into the background the same way we stopped using floppy disks. They will still exist for legacy compatibility, but fewer and fewer people will actually use them.

Looking Forward

The FIDO Alliance reports that passkey adoption is accelerating faster than any previous authentication technology. Browser support is universal. Operating system support is universal. The major identity providers (Okta, Azure AD, Auth0) have production ready implementations.

If you are running a WordPress site in 2026 and still relying purely on passwords, you are not just using outdated technology. You are actively accepting security risks that have a clear solution.

That is why we built passkey support into ArmorPro. This is where authentication is going, and WordPress sites should not be left behind while the rest of the web moves forward.