How do security teams handle passkey compliance & risk?

When enterprise security teams deploy passkeys at scale, effectively managing compliance and risk assessment becomes critical. These teams typically employ structured approaches to ensure passkey adoption aligns with organizational security policies, regulatory frameworks, and risk management practices.

Enterprise security teams manage compliance during passkey rollouts by:

• Mapping Passkeys to Regulatory Standards: Ensuring passkey implementations align with applicable regulatory frameworks (e.g., GDPR, PCI-DSS, HIPAA).
• Documenting and Auditing: Maintaining thorough documentation and audit trails to demonstrate compliance with security and privacy standards.
• Secure Credential Handling: Utilizing WebAuthn standards for secure storage and handling of passkey credentials to comply with regulatory data protection requirements.

Risk assessment strategies during passkey deployments involve:

• Comprehensive Risk Analysis: Evaluating threats such as phishing resistance, account enumeration, fallback vulnerabilities, and other potential security weaknesses.
• Monitoring and Incident Response: Implementing continuous monitoring systems to promptly detect and respond to unusual login activities or authentication failures.
• Fallback and Contingency Planning: Establishing robust fallback strategies that maintain security and usability, minimizing potential risks during passkey rollout phases.

Enterprise security teams also commonly use:

• Gradual Rollouts and Pilots: Deploy passkeys in controlled phases to identify and mitigate risks before broad implementation.
• User Education Programs: Training users on passkey benefits, secure practices, and potential risks, ensuring widespread acceptance and correct usage.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Coordinating closely with legal, compliance, and IT departments to ensure comprehensive security coverage and alignment across the organization.

Enterprise security teams effectively manage compliance and risk during passkey rollouts through careful regulatory alignment, rigorous risk assessment, proactive monitoring, strategic implementation, and cross-team collaboration—ultimately ensuring secure, compliant, and successful large-scale passkey deployments.