BlackHat USA attendants were surveyed by Delinea on password security. Of 100 business hall attendees polled, 54% said that "passwordless" is a viable concept while 79% agreed that passwords are evolving or becoming obsolete. Of the attendees surveyed. 36% identified their role as a security team member, 21% as CIO/CISO/CTO and 12% as IT Team/Administrators.

When asked how they protect their passwords, the majority of attendees surveyed indicated they use an additional authentication method to secure their credentials and identity. Seventy-three percent use some form of multi-factor authentication (MFA), while 57% specifically indicated they use an authenticator app and 40% use biometrics. Over half (52%) use a password manager while 34% use a PAM solution to securely store their passwords. One in five (21%) indicated they are using passkeys now instead of or in addition to passwords.

The polling also revealed a perception that organizations are lagging far behind nation states and cybercriminals in the ongoing CyberWar. Twelve percent of respondents indicated that they believe organizations are currently ahead of countries and criminals.

The survey also uncovered a range of opinions about the threat of artificial intelligence (AI) programs, with 34% stating that it's still early days and current iterations are not truly AI while 22% indicated that an AI takeover is already here. Eleven percent of those polled expressed confidence that AI will never take over.