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12/06/2026 10:13 pm
TL;DR: Passwords and stolen or weak credentials play a part in more than 80% of today’s breaches, which is why Axiad argues that fragmented passwordless rollouts leave policy gaps, inconsistent enforcement, and avoidable user workarounds. The practical issue is not just removing passwords, but governing every identity path coherently across the enterprise.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Axiad: Navigating the path to passwordless authentication
By the numbers:
- Passwords, along with stolen or weak credentials, play a part in more than 80% of today’s breaches.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should security teams implement passwordless authentication without creating new gaps?
A: Security teams should implement passwordless as an enterprise-wide control model, not as a series of isolated rollouts.
Q: Why does fragmentation make passwordless authentication less effective?
A: Fragmentation makes passwordless less effective because policy, visibility, and enforcement drift across separate authentication silos.
Q: What do security teams get wrong about passwordless and zero trust?
A: Teams often assume that removing passwords automatically advances zero trust.
Practitioner guidance
- Map every authentication path Inventory user, machine, privileged, and legacy application paths before rollout so you can identify fallback methods, siloed policy owners, and coverage gaps.
- Unify policy enforcement across identity types Apply the same control objectives to human users and machine identities so passwordless does not become a partial rollout with inconsistent assurance.
- Measure exception drift continuously Track where users, admins, or applications bypass the primary authentication path and review whether those exceptions are growing over time.
What's in the full article
Axiad's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- How the vendor frames enterprise-wide passwordless orchestration across Windows, Mac, Linux, and hybrid work patterns.
- The five-step checklist for breadth, integration, automation, visibility, and control in a deployment programme.
- The vendor's discussion of user experience, helpdesk workload, and administrative efficiency trade-offs.
- The source article's rollout framing for organizations already managing mixed authentication estates.
👉 Read Axiad's analysis of the path to passwordless authentication →
Passwordless authentication: what does an integrated path change?
Explore further
13/06/2026 12:50 am
Fragmented passwordless rollout is an identity governance failure, not a feature gap. The article’s core warning is that authentication controls become weaker when they are deployed in silos across users, machines, and operating systems. That is an IAM governance problem because policy enforcement, exception handling, and visibility all drift when identity paths are managed separately. Practitioners should treat passwordless as an enterprise control model, not a local deployment choice.
A few things that frame the scale:
- 91.6% of secrets remain valid five days after the targeted organisation is notified, showing a critical gap in remediation procedures, according to Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
- Only 5.7% of organisations have full visibility into their service accounts, according to the Ultimate Guide to NHIs.
A question worth separating out:
Q: Who is accountable when passwordless projects leave legacy authentication paths in place?
A: Accountability belongs to the identity and access management function, but execution must span application owners, infrastructure teams, and security leadership. Passwordless programmes fail when no single group owns coverage across users, machines, and exceptions. Governance should define who approves fallback methods, who reviews drift, and who signs off on completeness.
👉 Read our full editorial: Passwordless authentication fails when identity controls stay fragmented
