The age of the password may soon be over. A survey conducted by Ping Identity and Yubico concluded that leaders of the IT industry have serious issues with the modern password-based security system. 94% of IT leaders have serious issues with user-generated passwords and half of those surveyed believe that passwords are too weak for security purposes.
Rob Griffin, CEO at MIRACL says that, “It has long been recognized that passwords are outdated and not secure enough for the needs of a modern business”.
There is good reason to do with away with this system. Passwords are integrated into IT culture and tradition regardless of efficacy. Unlike multi-factor authentication, passwords are vulnerable to brute force attacks and phishing emails which rely on social engineering. MIRACL estimates that 80% of data breaches come from weak or compromised passwords.
Passwords are also a drain on productivity, representing a significant amount of time and effort which must be used to recover or remember convoluted passwords. 67% of those surveyed are concerned with the time-cost of password upkeep and 33% of help desk tickets are related to passwords.
“There are just too many flaws in password-based authentication and we need to move away from reliance on passwords as a society. There are other, safer means of authentication that require multiple factors and can’t be phished or brute forced which are more reliable, more user-friendly and above all, more secure.”
The results of the survey indicate that those companies which can offer a passwordless security solution are the future of security in IT. MIRACL is one of those companies offering PIN-based multi-factor authentication without a hardware requirement.
A solution hasn’t been adopted en masse by the IT industry because, as the survey indicates, 97% of respondents believe that they will face resistance in adopting a solution which does not rely on the passwords. In an attempt to tackle the cultural taboo of a passwordless society, MIRACL is hosting the worlds first Passwordless Day on June 23rd, 2022.
