TITLE:
Measuring Adoption and Security Impact of Passwordless Authentication in Large-Scale Identity Systems
AUTHORS:
Sadab Qureshi
KEYWORDS:
Authentication, Identity, FIDO2, Adoption, Cybersecurity Metrics
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Intelligence Science,
Vol.16 No.3,
July
24,
2026
ABSTRACT: The number of credentials stolen is increasing steadily, largely because they are generally not changing across accounts. It has been proven that previous authentication methods were lacking. Unshared secrets still have a couple of drawbacks, so passwordless authentication is still a tantalizing option that relies on public-key cryptography, biometrics, and hardware-based authenticators to facilitate identity verification. The focus of this review is on the use pattern and measurable security impact of passwordless authentication in a scalable enterprise and consumer identity system. It highlights the theory behind the use of the TAM and how users adopt it. The usability-security ratio plays a key role in implementations. The study extrapolates from the empirical studies of practical implementations, suggesting that passwordless solutions have the potential to substantially decrease the use of traditional password-based authentication. Those sorts of credential AND password reset requests are extremely high. However, it poses interoperability issues, device administration issues, regulatory issues, and user trust issues. The next-generation concepts would include the combination of decentralized identity and artificial intelligence for flexible and scalable security positions and identity lifecycle management. Passwordless authentication is a new obsession to build a secure, easy, and scalable digital identity system.