Today, Yubico is happy to announce the launch of our YubiKey for Lightning Partner Preview Program, the next phase of the YubiKey for Lightning Private Preview Program announced earlier this year.

This is an exciting step forward for both Yubico and the Works with YubiKey ecosystem. With the launch of the Partner Preview Program, our goal is to enable more web services and applications (relying parties) to improve the protection of customer accounts and the entire account lifecycle with cross-platform support.

The YubiKey for Lightning Partner Preview Program includes access to iOS and Android SDKs to allow organizations to unify the user experience across all mobile platforms. Partners will also receive access to a YubiKey 5Ci preview device (formerly the YubiKey for Lightning), for development and testing. The YubiKey 5Ci has both a USB-C and Lightning connector on one device and will be generally available later this year. As part of the multi-protocol YubiKey 5 Series, the YubiKey 5Ci gives developers the option of securing their iOS apps using the FIDO2, WebAuthn, U2F, OTP, PIV (smartcard) or OpenPGP protocols for passwordless or two-factor authentication.

YubiKey for Lightning participating partners

Since launching the initial YubiKey for Lightning Private Preview Program, several notable partners have been working with us to provide feedback on our iOS developer resources. We would like to extend a special thank you to those partners, including: 1Password, Brave Software, Dashlane, DoD PKI Purebred, Keeper Security, LastPass, Secmaker, XTN, and more.

We look forward to enabling a growing list of compatible services, providing out-of-the-box uses with everyone’s favorite iOS applications when the YubiKey 5Ci becomes generally available later this year.

As Yubico extends hardware authentication capabilities to iOS, the YubiKey will be supported across all major platforms, allowing it to be the trust anchor for the rightful owner and serve as a portable root of trust across any computer or mobile device.

For developers interested in adding YubiKey support into their iOS mobile apps, we welcome you to apply for the YubiKey for Lightning Partner Preview Program here.

New YubiKey 5Ci demonstrations and previews of partner supported applications can also be seen at Identiverse this week, at the Yubico booth #417.