Forgot Your Password? Better Not to Have One, says World Economic Forum
A new report by the World Economic Forum finds that freeing ourselves of passwords will actually make us safer and businesses more efficient. Cybercrime is set to cost the global economy $2.9 million every minute in 2020 and some 80 percent of the attacks are password-related. Knowledge-based authentication – whether with PINs, passwords, passphrases, or whatever we need to remember – is not only a major headache for users, it is costly to maintain. For larger businesses, it is estimated that nearly 50 percent of IT help desk costs are allocated to password resets, with average annual spend for companies now at more than $1 million for staffing alone.
Passwordless authentication does not mean removing all security barriers to our digitalized society, the report says. It means harnessing tools such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to save users time and save company money.