89% of IT leaders expect passwords will represent less than a quarter of their organization's logins within five years or less

The FIDO Alliance and LastPass released the 2023 Workforce Authentication Report today, which gauges IT decision makers’ attitudes and plans for removing passwords in favor of easier and more secure passwordless authentication. The verdict? Businesses are actively moving to eradicate passwords from employees’ lives, with 89% of surveyed IT leaders expecting passwords to represent less than a quarter of their organization’s logins within five years or less.

Top findings from the 2023 Workforce Authentication Report:

• Businesses are ready to embrace a passwordless future, with 92% having a plan to move to passwordless technology and 95% currently using a passwordless experience at their organization.
• Businesses believe passkeys will help make them more secure: 92% believe passkeys will benefit their overall security posture, and 93% agree that passkeys will eventually help reduce the volume of unofficial (i.e., “Shadow IT”) applications.
• However, many recognize that work still needs to be done: A majority of businesses surveyed are still using phishable authentication methods, such as passwords (76%) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) (43%) when it comes to authenticating users within their organization.
• The majority recognize that this transition will take time and education: 55% of IT leaders surveyed feel they need more education on how passwordless technology works and/or how to deploy it, and 28% cited concerns that users may be resistant to change or using a new technology.
• When making this transition, businesses made it clear they want to choose where they store passkeys, with 69% of IT leaders anticipating storing them in a third-party password manager.

“The move towards passwordless authentication has gained steam over the past few years as an increasing number of organizations have moved to eliminate the risk and liability of passwords as they are the source of the vast majority of data breaches,” said Andrew Shikiar, Executive Director and CMO of the FIDO Alliance. “Today’s report backs up this trend by illustrating that global IT leaders are rapidly aiming to reduce their reliance on legacy forms of authentication in favor of passkeys for user-friendly, phishing-resistant sign-ins.”

“These survey results demonstrate that businesses are excited about the prospect of a passwordless future, and all the benefits that future will bring. And the clear majority also recognize that a password manager plays an important role in that future,” said Mike Kosak, Senior Principal Intelligence Analyst at LastPass. “While the adoption of passwordless authentication will take some time and coaching, LastPass is proud to support forward-thinking leaders like these on that journey – ushering their organizations toward security that is stronger and more effortless than ever.”