Centralised access solutions, helpful or hurtful?

In an effort to avoid memorising all of their passwords, many users turn to centralised solutions such as password management software. However, there is one vital issue with centralised access or password managers: All of your passwords are all hidden behind a single door, either a master password, a token or a biometric. This creates a single point of failure scenario where one login opens all your systems or reveals your treasure trove of passwords to you… and to the criminal who has your master password, token or biometric.

If this happens, then the criminal has access to all of your passwords to do with as they wish – nowadays this usually ends in credentials being used or sold for use in costly ransomware attacks. While it is convenient to login only once, this critical weakness of centralised access is the reason ransomware can happen in the first place. Which means if you remove centralised access, you remove the threat of ransomware. On the contrary, decentralised access solutions removes that hugely risky single point of failure, combine layers of protection with automated password management. This means that even if one password is stolen, the rest are protected.