Should passwords be phased out?

May 8, 2020

Passwords have always been a necessary evil. We need them to have accounts and keep those accounts safe. But they have to be unique, we can’t reuse them for other important accounts, and they need to fit so many different criteria. It can be exhausting trying to manage that many passwords, but it’s necessary to help us stay secure. Unless, we didn’t need to have them at all? 

According to Microsoft Passwordless access is on the rise! With over 150 million people and 90% of their own staff using passwordless solutions. Which shouldn’t be a surprise since a lot of us use passwordless ways to unlock our personal devices now. Fingerprint and facial recognition is vastly more popular than having to type out your password every time. You just have to look at your phone to unlock it or press a location and boom instant access.

 
Microsoft has been making a push for multi factor authentication for a while now, as it has proven to help stop the loss of accounts from hackers. But now they are pushing for multi factor as well as implementing passwordless logins to secure accounts. Last year they found that MFA had stopped 99% of account takeover attempts.

Imagine not having to remember dozens of passwords in order to have access to all of your accounts! By using authentication keys from their app users have been able to log in without credentials that could be reused for a different account and compromised. We are all guilty of reusing passwords, I know I am. But using authentication apps to log in would halt the need for us to have a Rolodex, sticky note, or word document filled with all of the passwords we use.

A major benefit of switching to authentication apps to log into our devices is creating a more difficult environment for hackers. Most people don’t pick good passwords, it’s a pretty well known fact. Even if we do come up with a really good password they can be hard to remember and keep track of. I can’t even count how many times I’ve tried to log into an account with a password for a completely different account.

But I also have accounts that require my password along with an authentication key in order to give me access to my account. If we switched over to passwordless solutions think of the time and money we could be saving. Businesses would cut back on the time and money spent having IT professionals reset their passwords. Users would easily be able to access their accounts using secure authentication apps with codes that couldn’t be stolen.

 
This movement could be a great benefit not only for businesses, but also consumers. You would lower the amount of time and effort it takes to log into your devices and accounts. Reduce your IT costs because you don’t need to call Brad every time you’ve been locked out of your account for too many attempts. Plus you would make it very difficult for any hacker to gain access to your account because they won’t be able to run through a list of possible passwords you might use.

Multifactor is the future! So are authentication apps! They provide a lot more security then regular MFA because they can’t be intercepted like a text or email. They also can’t be duplicated by cyber criminals trying to clone your mobile device because they won’t be able to download your authentication app and gain access to it.

In short, you should really switch over to multi factor authentication apps in order to keep you and your business’s accounts secure from danger.