Jamf has released a new iPhone app called Jamf Unlock that’s designed to streamline logging into and unlocking a Mac tied to an enterprise management system.
Even though macOS doesn’t yet support Face ID, Jamf is bringing Face ID unlock technology to the Mac using the iPhone as a bridge. Passwords are certainly something we all struggle with, and by enabling biometric technology on macOS, end users can avoid having to type in their password every time they need to unlock their Mac.
A password-free enterprise appears to be on the horizon, and by 2022, Gartner predicts 60% of large and global enterprises, and 90% of mid-sized enterprises, will implement passwordless methods in more than 50% of their use cases.
Jamf Unlock is part of a Jamf Connect workflow and uses certificate-based authentication by issuing a certificate to your iOS device giving end users the ability to securely leverage their enterprise cloud identity to unlock the Mac, using Face ID, Touch ID, or a rotating PIN on their iPhone.
During the setup of Jamf Unlock, the employee generates a certificate for their device in the Secure Enclave of the iOS device to authenticate to their enterprise IDP. This identity and request generate a certificate that is stored locally on the Mac and the iOS device, and it cannot be exported to another device exported. This public key has been shared with and tied to the employee’s Mac so that each time a user tries to authenticate to their user account, it requires the phone to go through the authentication process.
Jamf Unlock is part of the Jamf Connect solution, but you don’t need to use Jamf mobile device management in order to use either solution.
