Why Passwordless Matters in OT Security — Beyond Convenience

For years, Passwordless has been discussed as a modern authentication approach — faster logins, better user experience, fewer forgotten credentials. All true, but incomplete. In Operational Technology (OT), Passwordless is not about convenience. It is about operational resilience, risk reduction, and a new architecture for trust. The conversation has been narrow for too long, often rooted in the assumption that removing passwords is simply a usability upgrade. In 2026, that perspective is insufficient.

OT security teams face a very different reality from IT environments: distributed assets, legacy systems that cannot run modern agents, unstable connectivity, third-party contractors regularly accessing critical equipment, and regulatory pressure under frameworks such as NIS2. Against this backdrop, repeating the old formula — stronger password policies + MFA + VPN tightening — does not fundamentally reduce credential-abuse risk. It simply makes compromise slower and user friction higher.

So the question for OT organisations is no longer “How do we strengthen passwords?” but “Why are we still relying on static credentials in systems where a single misuse can disrupt water supply, energy distribution or manufacturing continuity?”

Why risks in OT are shifting

Passwordless matters in OT not because passwords are uncomfortable, but because the environment has changed. Credential misuse remains a major cause of OT breaches, and while the industry has responded with longer passwords and more complex MFA flows, the authentication model itself remains static. OT operations today involve remote maintenance, vendor access, and frequent role-based interactions far beyond what traditional credential systems were designed to support.

When threats become dynamic, trust cannot remain static. Passwordless in OT is therefore not about speed or convenience — it is about aligning authentication with real operational behaviour, access context, and resilience expectations.

How OT Passwordless differs from IT Passwordless

Last year made one thing clear: reactive spending costs more than preventive investment — financially and operationally.

• A ransomware-triggered outage at a US energy provider required multi-day recovery and manual override procedures.
• Several manufacturing environments faced production halts after stolen credentials were used to move laterally across engineering workstations.
• Municipal services restored water and transport operations only after unauthorised access had already occurred.

Every recovery is more expensive than the safeguards that could have prevented it.

A common misconception is that Passwordless in OT is simply IT Passwordless applied to industrial environments. But OT has unique constraints and priorities. IT focuses on user-to-service authentication, typically online and supported by modern endpoints. OT ecosystems, however, span PLCs, HMIs, remote equipment, and legacy networks where connectivity and agent deployment are not guaranteed.

To illustrate the contrast:

In IT environments, Passwordless proves who you are. In OT, it must also prove what you are allowed to do, for how long, and under what operational state — and preserve evidence for audit and compliance. This difference changes the philosophy entirely.

From static credentials to contextual trust

Traditional authentication stores trust inside the credential itself — a password, a certificate, a token. Once leaked, the credential grants access wherever the perimeter allows. This design is increasingly incompatible with distributed OT environments.

In emerging OT architectures, trust becomes dynamic and context-driven. Rather than relying solely on identity, permission is validated according to:

• The user’s current role and task
• The asset or zone being accessed
• Time- or session-limited authorisation
• Maintenance or work order context
• Network connectivity conditions
• Safety and operational states of equipment

Instead of asking “Does the user know the secret?” the system shifts to “Is this specific action authorised under current conditions?” This is where Passwordless becomes an operational strategy rather than simply a login feature.

Adopting Passwordless without disruption

Another misconception is that Passwordless requires replacing IAM or rearchitecting entire networks. In OT, successful adoption is usually incremental. Organisations typically start with defined workflows — contractor access, remote maintenance, or critical asset zones — and extend outward with minimal operational friction.

In practice, this looks like:

• Running Passwordless alongside existing VPN/IAM systems
• Applying it first to high-risk or high-friction access paths
• Transitioning from credential-based to task- or session-based codes
• Reducing standing privileges step by step
• Moving towards Zero Trust readiness naturally, not abruptly

The value is not in eliminating passwords overnight, but in reducing exposure surface progressively, without disrupting operations.

Traits of effective OT Passwordless programmes

Different organisations approach the journey differently, but the most successful implementations share common DNA. Instead of treating Passwordless as a one-off security project, they approach it as a trust architecture upgrade.

Typically, they:

• Align authentication changes with operational goals such as uptime, auditability, and remote access efficiency
• Shift from stored credentials toward dynamic, single-use or contextual authorisation
• Treat access decisions as task-based events, not permanent identity permissions
• Build auditability into every action instead of relying on post-incident logs
• Design access flows flexible enough to support Zero-Trust models later

Passwordless, in this sense, is less about eliminating passwords than it is about modernising the way trust is granted and maintained.

Why now — and why it matters going forward

With NIS2 enforcement advancing, scrutiny on traceability and incident containment will intensify. Critical infrastructure cannot depend solely on logs that reveal who logged in, but not what they performed. The future of OT security is continuous validation — where authentication doesn’t end at login, but follows the workflow itself.

Passwordless supports this transition naturally. The industry isn’t moving this way because workers dislike passwords — it is moving because static trust cannot support dynamic operations. As digitalisation, remote work, and cross-organisational access accelerate, the authentication foundation must evolve.