COVID-19 has disrupted the business norm and forced most organizations, including many Yubico partners, to adjust their security strategies. Our partners have had to recommend and implement the right technologies that will enable their customers, who are now managing expanded remote workforces, to achieve secure access to critical applications – all while maintaining business continuity.
Companies have become smarter about how they address:
- Investments in cybersecurity
- BYOD and connectivity to internal networks
- Employee productivity
- VPN overload
A recent Forrester Report¹ cited 10 security and risk technologies to pay attention to as a result of the pandemic, with one major disruptor being the shift away from weak password requirements. Many authentication solutions that were good enough a few years ago, do not protect against modern malware, phishing or man in the middle attacks. By moving beyond passwords to hardware-based security keys, organizations are enabling the strongest form authentication, that is proven to mitigate account takeovers, with unsurpassed ease-of-use.
It has been our long standing mission to make the internet safer for everyone. By being a pioneer for security keys with our YubiKey, and co-creating open security standards such as FIDO2 and WebAuthn, major platform companies, like Microsoft, are helping to drive the global business world towards the elimination of passwords.
Microsoft has been incorporating FIDO2 flows that support YubiKey strong authentication features that work natively with Azure Active Directory, Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 applications. Incorporating these types of identity verifications in conjunction with hardware-based authentication, hardens the security and mitigates remote phishing attacks.
Together with Microsoft, we are announcing a Go Passwordless Pilot Program where qualified Services Providers (e.g. systems integrators, consulting services) in Canada, EU, UK and US can nominate their customer to pilot the Azure Active Directory Passwordless flow. For a limited time, Yubico and Microsoft are offering 25 free YubiKeys to up-to 100 qualified customers to pilot the Microsoft Azure AD Passwordless flow and YubiEnterprise Delivery (YED) service.
“I believe this offering is a compelling program. It fits well with our respective missions to help everyone achieve more and make the internet safe for everyone.” – Sue Bohn, Partner Director of Program Management in the Identity Division at Microsoft.
To get started and check qualifications:
- Services Provider will need to identify a customer (500+ Azure AD Users) that has the technical FIDO2 requirements to go passwordless
- Enroll your organization into the program. If you have an Azure AD + Yubico Passwordless practice – share the link with us when you sign up!
- Then, nominate the customer for the pilot
- If you and your customer are selected for the pilot, we will contact you for shipping details
Pilots requirements: Windows 10 version 1903 or later, Azure Active Directory and Yubico’s YubiKey 5 series, Microsoft Azure AD MFA enabled users, and integrate Azure AD with Microsoft and 3rd party applications; such as Office 365, Salesforce, and ServiceNow.
Services Partners such as Patriot Consulting (US), InSpark (NL), ThirdSpace (UK) Skill (NO), Magellan Securite (FR), SPIE (FR) have already built Microsoft 365 integrations with YubiKeys. Nominate your customer by going to Go Passwordless Customer Pilot Program.
We encourage businesses to build their practice by incorporating strong, hardware-based authentication methods.
Stina Ehrensvard, CEO and founder of Yubico and Sue Bohn, Partner Director of Program Management in the Identity Division at Microsoft, discuss the Go Passwordless Pilot Program and how both companies are helping to drive open standards and passwordless momentum.
¹ Csar, Andras; et al, “The Top Security Technology Trends To Watch, 2020,” June 30, 2020