150 million people have already stopped using passwords

[Tomcat]

Since this week was World Password Day, Microsoft has shared some interesting stats on its blog.

According to analysts, more and more people are moving away from using traditional passwords and preferring alternative solutions for authentication. Thus, the number of users using Microsoft's "passwordless" solutions has reached 150 million (up from 100 million in November 2019). This figure covers users of the company's online services such as Azure, GitHub, Office, and Xbox.

Company statistics include users who rely on Windows Hello (fingerprint and face recognition) to access Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) and users who use Microsoft Authenticator and FIDO2-enabled keys to sign in to various accounts no passwords.

Microsoft says that one of its current goals is to encourage people to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) solutions more often, as well as "passwordless" authentication methods, which will generally improve the security of their accounts. After all, the company's research shows that most people tend to use the same passwords over and over again, putting their accounts at risk and making them easier to crack.

The company also notes that the rejection of passwords allows you to reduce the cost of technical support, since employees simply do not have passwords that they can forget and then ask to reset. For example, within Microsoft, 90% of employees have already switched to "passwordless" authentication.