Security professionals see a passwordless future drawing closer

We are moving nearer to a passwordless future according to a survey from Delinea carried out at at the 2023 Black Hat USA Conference.

A survey of 100 attendees finds 54 percent say that 'passwordless' is a viable concept while 79 percent agree that passwords are evolving or becoming obsolete.

The majority already use an additional authentication method to secure their credentials and identity. 73 percent use some form of multi-factor authentication (MFA) while 57 percent specifically say they use an authenticator app and 40 percent use biometrics. 34 percent use a PAM solution to securely store their passwords, but only 21 percent are using passkeys now instead of or in addition to passwords.

"The findings of this survey indicate an understanding of what passwordless means beyond just being a marketing term -- specifically that it's moving passwords into the background and using easier additional forms of authentication instead," says Joseph Carson, chief security scientist and advisory CISO at Delinea. "This takes on increased significance when 75 percent of respondents also acknowledged that the fastest way to get access to a network is through social engineering or stolen identities and passwords. The quicker organizations and end users alike can evolve their identity and access security beyond passwords, the safer we’ll be as a society."

Among the survey’s other findings, 12 percent of respondents indicate that they believe organizations are currently ahead of countries and criminals in the ongoing cyberwar. It also asked about the threat from AI, with 34 percent stating that it's still early days and current iterations are not truly AI while 22 percent say that an AI takeover is already here. Only 11 percent of those polled think that AI will never take over.

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