Passwordless Authentication - A Digital Trust Transformation in Combating Credential-Based Attacks

Passwordless Authentication is becoming more relevant in the modern era of digital security by offering organizations a strong defence against credential based cyber-attacks that have always been the most prevalent cause for data breaches. In this article we will explore how passwordless technologies work and how they are slowly reshaping authentication and reducing the risks of credential driven threats.

Reports That Underpin the Article

• The recent Comcast Business Cybersecurity Threat report highlights that phishing scams initiate 80-95% of all human-associated breaches.
• Another recent statistic shows that 75% of all cyber-attacks start with a deceptive email - whether it’s malware, credential theft, or impersonation scams.
• 2025 FIDO report has indicated that 75% of global consumers are now aware of passkeys and 69% have already enabled passkeys in one or more accounts, which marks a massive jump in public recognition compared to just a few years ago.

What are Credential Based Attacks?

A credential-based attack is a type of cyber-attack wherein an attacker attempts to steal and misuse user credentials, such as usernames, email addresses, and passwords to gain unauthorized access to systems, network, and applications. The primary goal here is to bypass authentication measures and impersonate authorized users, which will allow access to confidential information and sensitive resources. These attacks if not treated effectively often cause reputational damage, financial losses, and data breaches.

Types of Credential Based Attacks

Phishing: Phishing involves tricking the user with illegitimate emails, messages or websites. The goal is to trick the user to reveal their credentials, and often with the use of social engineering to exploit basic human psychology and trust.

Keylogging: Keylogging works by infecting a system with a malware. Malware launches keylogger to record the login credentials. Keylogger are installed through various means such as deceptive emails, illegitimate website downloads, and messages.

Man in the Middle (MitM) attacks: In this method, attackers intercept and modify communication between two parties (users or systems) to steal credentials. This attack typically occurs on an unsecure network or at device level.

Initial access brokers (IABs): IAB’s are specialized threat actors or groups that sell stolen credentials to cybercriminals. They can utilize any of the three previously mentioned attacks to obtain the credentials. They play a very critical role in the threat landscape and ecosystem by selling these sensitive credentials to others via online forums on the dark web.

Having defined credential based attacks and their types, I’d also like to highlight that 68% of all cyberattacks start with stolen credentials. The reasoning for that is these attacks: are easy to execute, have a high success rate, have a lower risk of being detected early, require minimal resources, and have wide range of target areas. This is also one of the biggest risks of using static passwords as an authentication method.

What is Passwordless Authentication?

Passwordless Authentication is an authentication mechanism that allows a user to access any application or a system without physically entering a password or answering a predefined security question. Instead, Passwordless Authentication relies on some other form of authentication evidence such as biometric (fingerprint, retina/iris scanner, FaceID), a badge or a hardware token. Typically, in the regulated and complex world it is often used in aggregation with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Single Sign-On (SSO) solutions to improve user experience, maintain compliance and reduce IT burden.

Why Passwordless Authentication is the Game Changer

Let’s look at how Passwordless Authentication protects against the aforementioned credential based attacks and other important benefits that it can offer:

• Seamless user experience: For users, the process becomes seamless by not having to remember multiple passwords, having to periodically reset passwords, and improves user experience.
• Low operational cost for organizations: Specifically for organizations it reduces the operational costs by removing password reset requests, reducing policy updates and overall risk of managing them.
• Addresses credential-based attacks: Since there is no involvement of passwords, which are static in nature, attackers don’t have anything to steal. Thereby, Passwordless Authentication holistically addresses credential theft and credential stuffing.
• Phishing resistant: Some passwordless methods such as passkeys or FIDO2, rely on cryptographic key pairs, domain verification, and hardware tokens, making them one of the best solutions for phishing resistant authentication in the modern day.
• Enables Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA): Zero Trust Model (ZTM)is one of the critical future Cybersecurity strategies wherein the trust is never assumed and is continuously validated. Aspasswordless is dynamic and does not depend on static credentials, it will be in line with the core concepts of Zero Trust Architecture model.

Adoption Challenges for Passwordless Authentication

While Passwordless Authentication has significant potential in addressing various cyber risks and operational challenges, organizations can face a few practical challenges during adoption:

Initial Enrolment Costs: Transitioning to completely passwordless environment would require high initial investment in newer infrastructure, hardware token devices, and biometric devices.

End user awareness: Many employees might be hesitant to adopt changes to the way they operate, and might also raise privacy concerns when biometrics and data around it is involved.

Compatibility with existing devices: Given the scale at which this change must take place, many legacy applications might not be compatible with Passwordless Authentication, bringing in new compatibility challenges to the initial deployment.

Regulatory considerations: With the varying data privacy laws and security standards, especially around biometrics and cryptographic methods, initial large scale rollout can come with its own set of complications.

Conclusion

Credential based attacks have been the cause for majority of cyberthreats, given the ease of execution and significance of the impact. Passwordless authentication counters these threats by adding a strong dynamic authentication layer while also reducing operational burden on organizations. Having said that, Passwordless Authentication comes with real hurdles in adoption, especially in complex organizations and everchanging environments. Organizations must take a risk-based approach with phased planning, and more importantly, align all these with strong governance practices.

All in all, in a world where most breaches begin with stolen credentials, there is an immediate necessity in looking beyond passwords. Embracing Passwordless Authentication can be essential in building a future that is secure, resilient and most importantly, builds digital trust.

References

1. 2025 FIDO Consumer Password & Passkey Trends
2. Statistics – Comcast Cyber Threat Report
3. Statistics on Phishing emails
4. Statistics on Stolen credentials