There is no doubt that any type of password, regardless how complex, cannot 100% guarantee the security of a user’s identity. This leads to one of the biggest headaches for organisations when considering their security risks.
According to 10th edition of the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 81% of hacking-related breaches used either stolen orweak passwords. Investigations done by security researchers have demonstrated that organisations can reduce the odds of being compromised by up to 99.9% by implementing and using multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Passwordless approaches represent the next generation of account security that accelerate the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for businesses and provide a simpler, better user experience, along with fast and secure methods to access system, applications and services.
Passwordless eliminates the business challenge of people using weak or compromised passwords from re-using passwords across multiple platforms and applications. These approaches use different forms or multi-factor authentication to replace the password as an authentication option with a more secure alternative.
Passwordless authentication uses other factors such as biometrics, PINs and public/private key cryptography methods. Based on the new standards like Fast Identity Online (FIDO2) and Web Authentication API (WebAuthN),organisations can enable passwordless authentication across different platforms.These standards use biometrics and other types of devices that most of people use these days, such as smartphones, fingerprint scanners, security keys or webcams.
The below diagram shows the comparison between the different types of authentication from two perspectives – convenience versus security.
Planning to Adopt Passwordless
The are couple of core steps and decisions that you need to consider as part of adopting passwordless for your business.
Choosing the right technology
This is very important step and it’s where technical experts who work with business teams start when determining the best possible technology to address the requirements of business. They consider existing equipment such as mobile phones, Windows Hello for Business via webcams or buying new ones such as portable FIDO2 hardware devices to roll out the technology across the organisation. In addition, any alternative options for technology should consider the familiarity of users with it.
Understanding how it works
Businesses should understand how the passwordless technology works to allow them to overcome the security challenges of replacing the password method. By adopting this technology, business should become familiar with the way this will impact onboarding, lifecycle management and off boarding of identities and devices.
Increasing user adoption
Adding new technology into a business has some challenges including user adoption. Businesses can simulate the passwordless method forusers in a test environment or a group of users to encourage the cultural shift within the organisation. Emphasising the idea that this will mean the usernever needs to type passwords in future, or change them going forward, will make users more comfortable to use this technology.
Byte as security gold partner with Microsoft will assess your business requirements and provide the best possible solution to adopt and use this technology in your organisation. Contact us to get more information of your next step of modernising your authentication.
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