Unlocking the future: How Companies Can Embrace the Passwordless Revolution

Passwords, once the bedrock of digital security, are now proving to be an Achilles’ heel for many businesses. With a surge in data breaches and cyber attacks, the call for a more secure, user-friendly authentication method has never been louder. This has led companies to explore the world of passwordless authentication, and most consumer and scientific studies point towards biometrics as a worthy technology to consider as a replacement for passwords.

The Downfall of Passwords

The harsh reality is that traditional passwords have become vulnerable to sophisticated hacking techniques. According to the latest industry reports, a staggering 81 percent of data breaches are caused by weak or stolen passwords.* This alarming statistic highlights the urgent need for a shift in digital security protocols.

Transitioning to Passwordless (and Biometrics)

Companies have multiple paths toward passwordless authentication adoption. 

One approach involves deploying hardware security keys with integrated fingerprint scanners, which could incur significant costs for distribution and management, potentially creating logistical hurdles for businesses. Moreover, reliance on physical devices may restrict accessibility for some users, leading to possible usability challenges. This approach potentially fits certain enterprise or corporate applications but it can’t scale to someone who say has millions of consumers that they want to transition to a passwordless experience.

Another method, utilizing one-time passcodes via email or SMS, could be vulnerable to interception by hackers, posing a threat to security. The National Institute of Science and Technology, the US body that publishes various cryptography and security related standards deprecated the use of SMS-OTP and denounces its use as a multi-factor authentication technique. Additionally, this often results in a less streamlined user experience due to delays in receiving passcodes or being lost in SPAM especially if delivered via email.

Another method now being popularized is the use of authenticator apps that are locked by a device-based biometrics mechanism such as TouchID and FaceID. Again, while this solves the challenge of providing hardware keys to consumers, it still poses a significant obstacle in getting your consumers to download and setup this special authenticator app. This type of setup since it relies on the consumer device being biometric enabled may be less applicable in certain countries or situations and can also be expensive to administer and support. It also poses a consumer inconvenience when it’s time for the consumer to switch to a new device or when their device is lost or otherwise unavailable.

In contrast, Biometric Authentication that can be deployed as part of the main consumer experience circumvents these issues by offering a seamless and secure login experience. Wink takes this even further by leveraging a multi-modal biometric approach that uses users’ unique facial and vocal characteristics for authentication on any device that has a consumer facing camera. Wink eliminates the need for physical tokens or susceptible passcodes or dependence on biometrically enabled devices or the need to download a separate authenticator app. Wink Login SDK can be easily integrated as part of the main consumer experience in your website or app and it expands the biometric authentication coverage to virtually all types of consumer devices ensuring a reliable and user-friendly authentication process that is both multi-modal, multi-factor and device agnostic.

How to Embrace the Biometric Advantage

When an organization decides to embrace biometrics as a means to free their consumers from the clutches of passwords, there are many factors that need to be considered in picking the right solution:

• Do you want to offer biometrics as the primary form of authentication to your consumers while still keeping the passwords as a back-up option? While this can be appealing in some ways as consumers are mostly familiar with how passwords work but this does keep the door open for hackers. Problems like account takeovers and account sharing will persist if you choose to go this route.
• Do you want to figure out a good consumer journey for your users to move away from passwords and once they have setup a passwordless method of access, the password is no longer an option for these users? This can be a little daunting at first, but it certainly can prove to be safer in the long run if you are managing sensitive data of your consumers because this can prevent account takeovers.
• Are you offering social logins as an option for consumers to access their account (such as Google/Apple/Facebook sign-in)? If yes, then you need to carefully consider how your passwordless authentication journey can co-exist with some of these systems that will continue to rely on passwords for some-time but offer a great deal of convenience for your consumers as they don’t have to remember or setup a different password on your side.

Apart from the consumer experience considerations above, there are other factors that you need to consider while planning your upgrade to a passwordless system.

• Cost of the system: Did you have a home grown password management system or were you using a 3rd party authentication system? In your journey to passwordless, most likely, you will no longer be able to home grow a safe and secure passwordless authentication system, so the cost of transition has to be carefully considered.
• Consumer coverage: What kind of engagement channels and apps do consumers use to interact with your system? What kind of devices do they use? In picking a passwordless authentication system for a consumer base where you cannot dictate the device, operating system or browser, you should only pick a passwordless authentication system that does not predicate your customers to have to upgrade to a special device or OS in order to benefit from the transition. This will force you to keep passwords as a backup option for consumers who don’t upgrade thereby significantly diluting and reducing the advantages of transitioning to a passwordless system.

The experts at Wink can help you with the transition to passwordless as our systems are designed keeping the above considerations in mind so that your journey is not only painless, but it also is not a one size fits all approach. Our systems are designed to allow you to create an experience and system that fits your needs and maximizes the benefit of a passwordless system without taking on a huge amount of costs or compromises. In most cases, Wink solution works on all devices and is also cheaper to deploy than some popular password management and authentication systems that are mostly designed for corporate employees and enterprises uses but are very expensive to scale to millions of consumers using all sort of devices in real life.

Combating Fraud created by BOTs with Data-Backed Insights

The shift to passwordless authentication isn’t just about convenience—it’s also a strategic move to combat fraud. According to the latest industry analysis, businesses are losing billions annually due to fraudulent activities associated with traditional password-based systems and BOT related attacks. In addition to managing passwords and combating hackers who can use a weak password vulnerability to gain access to your systems, organizations now have to deploy additional solutions to combat the threat of attacks orchestrated by BOTs and systems that deploy AI to mount a brute force way to bypass authentication systems.

In your choice of a passwordless authentication solution, the above has to be kept in mind, as your chosen solution should not only provide protection against passwords but ideally also against BOT and AI generated attacks.

Wink’s Biometric Authentication provides such an added layer of security, significantly reducing the risk of fraudulent login attempts and unauthorized transactions. In addition, Wink can also provide a significant level of analytics and data about your users in a safe, permission-based and privacy-aware mechanism.

Join the Passwordless Movement with Wink

As we navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape, it’s imperative for businesses to adapt to more secure and user-friendly authentication methods. With Wink’s Biometric Authentication technology, companies not only can mitigate the risks of data breaches but also elevate their customer experience to new heights

Make the switch to Wink’s Passwordless Authentication and unlock a future of seamless security and unparalleled convenience.