Start by moving privileged users, administrators and anyone who can reset access into phishing-resistant MFA first. That sequence reduces the highest-impact takeover paths before broader rollout begins, and it creates a real operational example for user support, recovery and device provisioning across the rest of the programme.
Why the rollout should start with privileged and recovery-capable users
The first move is to reduce the easiest high-impact takeover paths, not to chase full coverage immediately. Privileged users, administrators and anyone who can reset access are the highest-leverage accounts because one compromise can become many compromises. Moving them first also gives the IAM team a working model for enrollment, help desk handling and exception management.
That is why phishing-resistant methods such as passkeys or security keys belong ahead of broader migration waves. They materially lower the value of OTP interception, MFA fatigue, SIM swap and replay-style attacks while keeping the initial rollout focused on the accounts that matter most.
Teams usually get more benefit from protecting the reset path than from protecting ordinary sign-in first. If an attacker can convince support to reset an account, or can take over an admin account that has broad authority, SMS and OTP controls can fail even when they are technically enabled.
Why OTP and SMS should be treated as interim controls, not the end state
OTP and SMS MFA still improve security over passwords alone, but they are not equally resistant to phishing, social engineering or telecom-based abuse. Their weakness is not just the token itself, it is the way a real attacker can obtain or redirect the code, then use it quickly before the session is challenged again.
For that reason, IAM teams should view them as a bridge while the stronger factor is rolled out to the accounts with the most blast radius. The practical question is less “can we keep OTP?” and more “which users create the greatest loss if OTP is bypassed?”
Where support processes still allow password resets, MFA resets or device re-enrollment with weak verification, the control gap is often larger than the login factor gap. That is why recovery channels and help desk procedures must be included in the first wave, not left until the end.
What a sensible first phase looks like in practice
The first phase should be narrow, visible and operationally rehearsed. Start with administrators, privileged operators, security staff, service owners and support staff who can change credentials, reset access or approve recovery, then make sure they can enroll cleanly in the new method without creating temporary bypasses.
Use that cohort to validate device provisioning, break-glass handling, lost-device recovery and support scripts before the programme expands. If the first group cannot complete enrollment or recovery without repeated manual exceptions, the wider rollout will only scale the same failure pattern.
- Move privileged and recovery-capable users first.
- Require a phishing-resistant factor for those accounts before broadening to the rest of the workforce.
- Keep SMS or OTP only as a temporary fallback where business constraints demand it.
- Test help desk recovery, device replacement and break-glass access with real scenarios.
Risk and Threat Considerations
SMS and OTP remain attractive because attackers can bypass them through phishing, push fatigue, session theft, SIM swap, social engineering or help desk abuse. The greatest exposure is not the average user, it is the account that can reset others or reach sensitive systems after compromise.
Failure mechanism: An attacker compromises a privileged or recovery-capable account, or uses a weak recovery process to obtain one, then expands access faster than the organisation can detect or contain the takeover.
Impact: One weak account can become a domain-level or tenant-level incident, especially when the compromised user can reset MFA, approve access, rotate credentials or access administrative consoles.
Standards & Framework Alignment
This section maps relevant standards and security frameworks to the operational risks and controls described in this guidance.
OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 addresses the attack and risk surface, while NIST SP 800-63 and NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 set the governance and control requirements practitioners need to meet.
| Framework | Control / Reference | Relevance |
|---|---|---|
| NIST SP 800-63 | Digital Identity Guidelines | Phishing-resistant MFA and recovery assurance are central to staged authentication upgrades. |
| Recommendation — Adopt phishing-resistant authenticators for high-risk users first and align recovery with stronger assurance. | ||
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 | IA-2 — Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users) | Privileged workforce accounts need stronger authentication before broad rollout. |
| IA-5 — Authenticator Management | OTP and SMS deprecation depends on managing authenticators and their lifecycle safely. | |
| AC-2 — Account Management | Prioritizing admins and recovery-capable users is an account-management decision with high blast radius. | |
| Recommendation — Strengthen authentication for administrative users before expanding weaker MFA deprecation. Rotate and retire weak authenticators while enforcing secure enrollment and recovery. Prioritise elevated accounts in the MFA migration plan and review recovery privileges. | ||
| OWASP Non-Human Identity Top 10 | NHI-04 — Insecure Authentication | OTP and SMS are weaker authentication paths compared with phishing-resistant methods. |
| Recommendation — Replace interceptable factors with phishing-resistant authentication for critical accounts. | ||
Practitioner Guidance
What to prioritise: Put privileged users, admins and help desk-adjacent roles at the front of the queue, because they create the largest reduction in attack surface per migration step. If a role can change another user’s access state, it deserves stronger authentication before general users do.
What to verify: Confirm that enrollment, recovery and exception handling work end to end before declaring the first phase complete. The control is not real if users can still fall back to weak recovery, shared devices or undocumented bypasses.
Practitioner takeaway: The right first step is to secure the highest-impact accounts and the recovery path they can influence, then use that rollout to harden the process before scaling it across the rest of the population.