On Friday, it announced it's given out 100,000 of its own Titan hardware security keys to election officials and female politicians, activists, journalists and executives through its Advanced Protection Program. Google, an enormous player with billions of people using services like Gmail, YouTube and Google Workspace, is working hard to overcome the weaknesses of passwords alone. In addition to hardware security keys, the tech industry is easing password problems with biometrics, authentication apps on phones and an authentication standard called FIDO (Fast Identity Online). Tech giants like Microsoft, Facebook and Google are shoring up password weaknesses and, in some cases, moving beyond them entirely.

They can be stolen, forgotten, reused and easily guessed. Passwords are convenient and familiar but face a host of security shortcomings. The YubiKey Bio keys are part of a growing movement to overthrow passwords, the reigning method for login technology. The key itself stores the fingerprint data and tells the site when you've successfully authenticated. That could replace a password altogether on sites like Microsoft's that let you register the key. The YubiKey Bio keys add another layer of protection to the authentication process by enabling a second factor of identification, a fingerprint.

Hackers can't download millions of hardware security keys as they do with stolen passwords. A hacker with your password can't access your account without the security key, too.

Hardware security keys such as Yubico's are often used in combination with passwords to bolster conventional login processes. The UBS-C key costs $85 and the USB-A key $80. Yubico on Tuesday began selling two new hardware security keys called YubiKey Bio that incorporate fingerprint recognition to add an extra level of login security on a single device.

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