Pairing creates a trust between the security key and your account, so you can use it to authenticate during the sign-on process.

After you have paired your account successfully, you can use a security key to access your account using a Web browser or to access a Windows login machine. If you do not have internet access or a network connection when accessing through Windows login, if you have authenticated successfully online at least once, you can also use a security key to authenticate manually when offline.