Topic starter
12/06/2026 10:24 pm
TL;DR: Passwords are being pushed out by three converging pressures: exposed credentials on the dark web, AI-assisted phishing and social engineering, and growing availability of phishing-resistant authentication such as FIDO passkeys and certificates, according to Axiad. The real shift is that stronger authentication is becoming operationally scalable, so password dependence is now a governance choice rather than a technical necessity.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Axiad: “Enough is Enough: 4 Reasons Passwords Will Be Flushed This Year”.
Key questions
A: Prioritise passwordless authentication on the workflows that create the most support burden and security exposure, such as remote access, privileged applications, and high-value SaaS.
Q: Why do passwords remain a security problem even with strong policies?
A: Passwords remain a problem because policy cannot eliminate the human failure modes that come with shared secrets.
Q: What breaks when passwordless authentication is not operationally scalable?
A: Strong authentication stalls at pilot stage, and teams fall back to passwords because enrollment, device replacement, and recovery become too hard to support.
Practitioner guidance
- Audit password-only access paths Identify workforce applications, admin consoles, and remote access flows that still permit passwords as the primary authenticator, then rank them by exposure and business criticality.
- Prioritise phishing-resistant factors for high-risk users Move privileged staff, administrators, and high-value business roles to hardware-backed authentication or certificate-based access before lower-risk populations.
- Build credential lifecycle operations before broad rollout Plan enrollment, replacement, preregistration, inventory, and reset handling as core operating processes rather than afterthoughts.
Bottom line: Passwords remain a weak trust mechanism because they can be stolen, reused, and replayed at scale.
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13/06/2026 1:07 am
Passwords are becoming a governance liability, not just an authentication weakness. Once credential exposure becomes cheap and AI-assisted phishing makes reuse easier, password dependence stops being a sensible default. The article’s real signal is that organisations can now move away from passwords without accepting an operational penalty that excuses delay. For practitioners, the question is no longer whether passwords are weak, but how long governance will keep tolerating them.
A few things that frame the scale:
- According to Forrester Research, a single password reset can cost around $70.
A question worth separating out:
Q: What is the difference between adaptive authentication and phishing-resistant MFA?
A: Adaptive authentication changes the challenge based on risk signals such as device, location, or behaviour. Phishing-resistant MFA changes the quality of the factor itself so stolen secrets are harder to reuse. The two controls solve different problems and work best together for regulated identity flows.
👉 Read our full editorial: Passwords are losing ground as phishing-resistant auth scales