One problem that continues to plague the cybersecurity efforts of multiple organizations is that employees have too many passwords to manage. The average person has at least 100 different passwords that they use regularly and has to keep up with.
Despite knowing they should create strong passwords and unique passwords for every account, bad passwords habits still run rampant in companies of all sizes. People reuse passwords across multiple accounts, they use easy-to-guess passwords (like qwerty or password123), and they store passwords in a non-secure way.
Here are just a few statistics that show how bad password habits are still prevalent and causing big problems with cybersecurity:
- 51% of people use the same passwords for work and personal accounts
- 53% of people rely on their memory to manage their passwords
- 80% of data breaches are caused by compromised passwords
Now, here is one more statistic that leads us to our topic: 57% of internet users wish there was a way to protect their account that was passwordless.
New Partnership to Make Passwords a Thing of the Past
Keep Security, a leader in providing zero-trust cybersecurity tools for password management, file storage, messaging, and more recently announced that it is partnering with TraitWare.
TraitWare is a company that provides passwordless multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) technology. This partnership will bring what’s being termed as Real Passwordless MFA™ to Keeper Vaults customers. This is Keeper Security’s password management application.
Let’s break down these three pieces – Passwordless sign-in, MFA, and SSO individually to explain what this can mean for easier and more secure access to your accounts.
Passwordless Sign-in
Passwordless sign-in technology may be familiar to anyone that has used the fingerprint option to unlock their screen on an iPhone. It simply means another way to access an account without using the standard username and password combination. Passwords have proven to be problematic as the use of the cloud and attacks on cloud accounts have risen.
TraitWare offers several different methods of authentication for users besides a password. The base of the TraitWare multi-factor solution is the possession of a device that is unique to an individual.
Options that can be used to securely log into an account (and to stop hackers from compromising an account) are:
- On-device prompt
- Photo authorization
- Biometric
- QR code scan
Image from Keeper Security
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication implements an additional requirement before a user is granted access to a system. MFA is very effective at preventing breached accounts and has been shown to block about 99.9% of fraudulent sign-in attempts.
TraitWare can do more than simply send a code to a user device for an additional authentication factor. This software can deploy up to 5-factor authentication, giving companies the flexibility to mix and match authentication standards as they need to.
For example, a company could add additional requirements for privileged accounts that have access to more sensitive data and assets. Or it could use contextual MFA, triggering an additional challenge question if someone is logging in from outside a standard geographical region for company employees or during an odd time of day.
Single Sign-on (SSO)
SSO streamlines the employee experience and allows companies to implement MFA without slowing employees down. This system will connect to all your company cloud platforms and provide one secure portal for logging into them all.
Employees only need to log in one time to access all their business tools, which improves their workflow, rather than using MFA multiple times a day with different business software tools.
Benefits of Keeper Security with TraitWare
With this new partnership, Keeper’s Enterprise Password Management (EPM) system is becoming even more powerful, more secure, and more convenient for company employees.
The implementation of a passwordless system means that the risk that a password would be breached is eliminated because other more secure methods of login are being used.
How does TraitWare get rid of passwords?
It uses other traits of a user or device to recognize them in a system. It also uses a combination of these traits, not just one, which greatly improves security.
Some of the user traits that can be used to verify identity include:
- Contact names
- Contact phone numbers
- Titles of songs on a device
Some of the device traits which are coupled with user traits for verification include:
- Device operating system
- Screen resolution
- Device name
- Mobile country code
- Mobile network code
Connect2Geek is Offering This New Technology. Find Out More Today!
Connect2Geek will be providing this new passwordless technology to all Protect IT Plus plans. For any Treasure Valley businesses that would like to improve user experience while mitigating the risk of a breach, we can help.
Schedule your free consultation to learn more today! Call 208-468-4323 or reach out online.