This shift to identity-based security has had major implications for compliance. Frameworks like FedRAMP, CMMC, and NIST 800-series controls all rely on strong identity practices. Yet areas like Identity Assurance remain a consistent challenge.
Many organizations assume that if a user can log in with MFA, their identity is secure. In reality, authentication only proves that someone possesses a credential. Identity assurance determines whether the system actually knows who that person is.
Passwordless authentication is a potential lynchpin for organizations struggling with identity as their security perimeter. While neither FedRAMP nor CMMC explicitly mandates passwordless technologies, both frameworks set requirements and outcomes that passwordless authentication can meet.
For organizations operating in regulated environments, especially those handling government data or CUI, passwordless authentication is no longer an emerging trend. It is rapidly becoming the most defensible approach to meeting modern compliance expectations.
When U.S. officials began publicly discussing the threat actor known as Salt Typhoon, it was clear this was something beyond mere disorganized attacks. But for compliance leaders, the more important question was how a campaign of this scale could operate for so long within systems that were supposed to be compliant?
At the center of this gap is a concept many organizations believe they have already addressed… namely, rootkits.