Apple has announced An open source project for developers of password managers is launched today. The goal is to make it easier for developers to create secure passwords that are compatible with popular websites.
Apple’s iCloud Keychain platform can generate secure passwords as soon as you create an account or change a password. The new open source project Password Manager Resources aims to extend this to Password Manager applications.
Apple explains in its announcement:
The Password Manager Resources open source project enables you to integrate website-specific requirements that the iCloud Keychain password manager uses to generate secure, unique passwords. The project also includes collections of websites that are known to share a login system, links to website pages where users change passwords, and more.
Apple has launched the new one Password Manager resources on GitHub so it’s available to everyone. The team behind the project explains that the idea is to design it so that ‘password manager developers can work together on resources to improve password management for users.’ As of now, the available information consists of data or ‘quirks’ and code.
- Password rules: Rules for generating compatible passwords with the special requirements of websites.
- Websites with shared credential backends: Groups of websites that are known to use the same credential backend that can be used to improve the proposed credentials for logging on to websites.
- Change the password URLs: To encourage the adoption of strong passwords, it is helpful to direct users directly to the password change pages on websites.
Apple offers developers three main advantages:
- By sharing resources, all password managers can improve their quality with less work than a single password manager would need to achieve the same effect.
- By publicly documenting website-specific behaviors, password managers can provide an incentive for websites to use standards or emerging standards to improve their compatibility with password managers. It’s no fun to be on a list!
- By improving the quality of password managers, we improve users’ trust in them as a concept that benefits everyone.
You can view the full collection of Password Manager resources on Apple GitHub page here.
