Password manager 1Password has started supporting passkeys built on ML-DSA, a post-quantum digital signature algorithm standardized by NIST, the company said on October 20. The change arrives as passkeys move into everyday use: the FIDO Alliance reported last week that 36% of successful sign-ins among the services it surveyed now use a passkey.

“Starting on version 8.12.44, 1Password will support using the post-quantum safe algorithm, ML-DSA, for passkeys,” the company said in a blog post. The new keys are not a default. 1Password said it “will only create these keys for websites that support ML-DSA for passkeys,” and that existing passkeys are not converted.

There are platform limits as well. Signing in with an ML-DSA passkey works on all platforms 1Password supports, but the company said that “creating an ML-DSA passkey isn’t supported on iOS or through the native macOS autofill extension.” It pointed developers and curious users to webauthn.io, a test site where an ML-DSA variant can be selected in the registration settings. The post does not name a specific ML-DSA parameter set or any production websites that accept the new keys.

Why move now

1Password’s concern is that a sufficiently large quantum computer could break the cryptography passkeys use today. The company said existing passkeys “are still safe because no CRQC currently exists,” referring to a cryptographically relevant quantum computer.

The company argued the margin is shrinking. It wrote that in 2023, breaking elliptic curve digital signatures was estimated to require around 13 million physical qubits, and that 2026 research, citing improvements in error correction, puts the figure at 26,000. The largest quantum computer it cited has 6,100 physical qubits, which 1Password described as “still far” from that threshold, “though the gap has shrunk enough for us to start migrating.” The post also noted that, as of 2023, governments were mandating migration to post-quantum cryptography by 2035.

The standards underneath

ML-DSA is defined in NIST’s FIPS 204, published in 2024. For it to work with passkeys, websites and authenticators also need an agreed way to encode the keys and signatures. That arrived in May 2026 with RFC 9964, an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Standards Track document that defines ML-DSA for the JOSE and COSE signing formats. It registers three parameter sets, ML-DSA-44, ML-DSA-65 and ML-DSA-87, and introduces a new key type for them. The COSE registrations are marked as recommended.

1Password noted that COSE is the format WebAuthn and CTAP2, the protocols behind passkeys, use to send a passkey to a website. That leaves the passkeys people already have. “We’re engaged in the W3C and the FIDO Alliance to develop a way to update existing passkeys seamlessly,” the company wrote, without giving a timeline.

Passkey use keeps climbing

The FIDO Alliance’s Passkey Index 2026, published on October 15, found that passkeys were used in 36% of successful sign-ins, up from about 26% in 2025. The alliance said enrollment grew more slowly than usage. Passkey sign-ins succeeded 93% of the time, against 78% for traditional multi-factor authentication (MFA), and were nearly three times faster, saving an average of 27 seconds per sign-in. Every participant that measures phishing reported fewer successful attacks after deploying passkeys, the index said.

In a separate post the same day, the alliance said the index draws on data from 15 consumer services and that “FIDO now estimates that 7 billion passkeys are in use worldwide.” It did not explain how the 7 billion figure was derived. The alliance also announced a FIDO Passkey Rubric, a checklist with bronze-through-platinum levels that it said is “for internal self-assessment, not certification.” The rubric flags common mistakes, such as allowing only one passkey per account.

Why it matters

A post-quantum passkey only helps if both sides support it. Because 1Password will create ML-DSA keys only for websites that accept the algorithm, wider use depends on site operators adding support through the newly standardized COSE encoding. For users, 1Password’s position is that existing passkeys remain safe while no cryptographically relevant quantum computer exists.

The scale of adoption raises the stakes for any migration. With FIDO estimating 7 billion passkeys in use, the work 1Password describes with the W3C and the FIDO Alliance on updating existing passkeys covers the bulk of credentials already in circulation, and no timeline has been given for it.

The caveats

The qubit estimates come from research cited by 1Password, and such estimates have changed sharply over time. The passkey usage figures come from a FIDO Alliance survey of participating services whose names are not listed on the index page, and its full methodology is in a separate report. 1Password has not said which production websites currently accept ML-DSA passkeys.

Corrections and tips: email the editor using the address on the Contact page.