Topic starter
12/06/2026 10:12 pm
TL;DR: Passwordless and other modern authentication methods still fail when organizations run authentication in silos, operate three or more IAM systems, and overburden users with friction, according to Axiad and the 2022 Authentication Survey. The practical shift is to treat authentication as an integrated identity control problem, not a point solution decision.
Editorial analysis by NHI Mgmt Group, based on content published by Axiad: “Rethinking Enterprise Authentication – A Practitioner Point of View”.
By the numbers:
- 70% of organizations have three or more Identity and Access Management systems already in place.
Key questions
Q: What breaks when authentication is managed in silos across multiple IAM systems?
A: Authentication gaps appear when assurance rules, recovery steps, and policy enforcement differ across systems.
Q: Why do fragmented authentication journeys increase identity risk?
A: Because people work around friction.
Q: How should teams prioritize authentication improvements in an IAM estate?
A: Start by connecting the highest-friction and highest-risk authentication paths, then align policy across the systems that most often handle sensitive access.
Practitioner guidance
- Map every authentication path across the estate Inventory where employees, contractors, admins, and service flows authenticate today, then document which systems enforce which assurance methods, reset processes, and exception rules.
- Standardize policy across IAM systems Define the minimum authentication outcomes that must hold across directories, applications, and federation layers so controls do not vary by platform.
- Automate repetitive authentication operations Reduce manual work for expired certificates, access resets, and other high-frequency tasks so administrators are not forced into ad hoc exceptions.
Bottom line: Authentication failures in large estates are usually structural, not limited to a single factor or method.
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This topic was modified 6 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group
13/06/2026 12:49 am
Authentication fragmentation is a governance problem, not a feature-selection problem. When organizations run multiple IAM systems, authentication policy becomes inconsistent by design unless the estate is deliberately integrated. That inconsistency creates gaps that neither passwordless adoption nor point solutions can close on their own. The practical conclusion is that authentication architecture should be governed as an estate-wide control model, not as separate product decisions.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How do security teams know whether authentication automation is actually helping?
A: Automation is helping when it removes repeatable work without increasing exceptions or hiding control gaps. Track whether certificate renewal, access reset, and policy enforcement are becoming faster while auditability stays intact. If exceptions are growing or policies diverge by platform, the automation layer is masking architectural inconsistency instead of fixing it.
👉 Read our full editorial: Rethinking enterprise authentication for fragmented IAM estates
This post was modified 6 days ago by NHI Mgmt Group