Rethink authentication to remove the burden on users | Computer Weekly
Summary
But no amount of security training can completely stop people from being tricked into handing over their credentials, downloading malware that steals login information, or reusing passwords that can be easily exploited. With agentic AI set to introduce a surge of non-human identities (NHIs) - bringing an added layer of complexity to an already complicated IT environment - enterprises need to rethink authentication, removing users from the process as much, and as soon, as possible. In fact, IBM’s 2025 Threat Intelligence Index found that most of the cyber attacks investigated last year were caused by cybercriminals using stolen employee credentials to breach corporate networks. Passwordless authentication, based on the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) standard replaces traditional passwords with cryptography keys bound to a user’s account on an application or website. Digital credentials allow organisations to authenticate NHIs with the same level of cryptographic security as human users, ensuring that AI agents interacting with corporate systems are verifiable and authorised.