What comes after passwords? [Infographic]

How many passwords do you have? 10? 15? 20? The average person has upwards of 191 passwords, and you can bet they aren’t using unique passwords for each of those accounts even if they remember where all of those accounts are. What’s more, 91% of people know they shouldn’t reuse passwords and they even know why they shouldn’t reuse passwords, but 66% say they do it anyway. And can you blame them? Keeping up with 191 separate, strong, unique passwords is impossible. So what happens after passwords become obsolete?

When passwords were first invented, no one even had any inkling that hackers would ever become a thing. Passwords were really created to manage access to shared mainframes, and the first password theft was by someone who wanted more time on the computer.

As the internet has grown and evolved, so have passwords. Fifteen or 20 years ago most people would have maybe two or three passwords to remember, but as more of our lives migrated online all of that changed.

Passwords were first encrypted using hashing then using “salt,” but that hasn’t proven to be strong enough as hackers know how to exploit human nature. Secure password managers and multi-factor authentication have provided some additional security, but what comes after passwords?

Authenticating users with metrics like IP address, security levels, geolocation, access history, and more may be a better way to ensure that hackers don’t stand a chance.

Learn more about the history and future of passwords from the infographic below

Image: Beyond Identity

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