Topic starter
12/06/2026 10:13 pm
TL;DR: Passwordless access, MFA adoption friction, and SCIM-based lifecycle automation for users, machines, devices, and authenticated interactions are at the center of a partnership with Ping Identity, according to Axiad, with machines now outnumbering employees 3 to 1 and MFA cited as a major control gap. The governance problem is no longer login experience alone, but whether identity programmes can cover every credentialed actor consistently.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Axiad: “Ping Identity & Axiad: What the identity-first partnership means for your business”.
Key questions
Q: How should security teams extend passwordless beyond workforce users?
A: They should start by separating human authentication from machine authentication, then map which devices, certificates, and service interactions need distinct control paths.
Q: Why do MFA and passwordless programmes fail when machine identities are ignored?
A: Because attackers rarely need to defeat every identity type.
Q: What are the best practices for automating identity lifecycle in passwordless environments?
A: Use authoritative provisioning data, SCIM-based updates and automated deprovisioning so access state stays in sync across identity systems.
Practitioner guidance
- Map every credentialed actor Inventory users, devices, machines and authenticated interactions that currently sit outside the passwordless scope, then assign an owner for each identity class.
- Automate joiner-mover-leaver events Wire SCIM and related provisioning flows into access creation, attribute updates and deprovisioning so passwordless state stays aligned with authoritative identity records.
- Bring certificates into identity governance Track certificate issuance, renewal and revocation as governed identity events for machines, devices and signing use cases.
Bottom line: Passwordless is not complete when it only improves human login, because machines, devices and authenticated interactions remain part of the identity attack surface.
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13/06/2026 12:51 am
Identity-first passwordless is really a governance model, not a login feature: the article's core point is that user passwordless alone leaves machine and device trust unresolved. That matters because identity programmes are judged by whether they govern every credentialed actor in scope, not by whether one login flow becomes easier. Practitioners should treat passwordless as an estate-wide identity control problem, not an authentication project.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What happens when certificate trust and user authentication are managed separately?
A: You get two identity controls that do not reinforce each other. Users may have stronger login methods, but devices and machines can still carry unmanaged or stale trust relationships. That creates a fragmented control plane where passwordless looks complete on paper but leaves non-human identities exposed in practice.
👉 Read our full editorial: Identity-first passwordless must cover users, machines and devices