With NIS2 coming into force across the EU, operators of critical infrastructure must rethink how they secure access across highly sensitive environments. At the core of this shift is passwordless identity security—a new paradigm for controlling access, reducing risk, and achieving compliance.
Let’s review why passwordless identity is a vital line of defence for energy, transportation, healthcare, and other critical sectors.
The EU’s NIS2 Directive raises the bar for cybersecurity across critical infrastructure. Covering sectors from energy and transportation to healthcare and finance, it focuses on making sure organisations adopt robust security measures, especially when it comes to access controls. At its core, NIS2 aims to reduce the risk of disruption caused by ransomware attacks, state-sponsored threats, and other sophisticated cyber incidents.
With NIS2 in force, traditional username/password approaches are no longer fit for purpose. This is where passwordless identity security steps in.
Passwordless identity security replaces traditional passwords with strong, cryptographically bound forms of access, such as FIDO2 hardware keys, mobile device biometrics, and risk-adaptive authentication. This approach doesn’t just protect user accounts from brute force or phishing attacks—it gives organisations a seamless way to enable access for trusted staff, suppliers, and contractors across highly regulated environments.
Consider a regional water utility targeted by ransomware. An attacker gains access to critical controls using a guessed or reused password. The result? Disruption of services for hundreds of thousands of people. In a passwordless identity framework, access is protected by a strong, unphishable method like a FIDO2 device or mobile biometric verification. The attack doesn’t stand a chance.
- Adopt a Zero Trust approach that verifies every access request.
- Eliminate passwords and phase in passwordless identity for employees, suppliers, and contractors.
- Integrate strong MFA and risk-based access across legacy and cloud environments.
- Maintain robust audits and access controls that can evolve with future regulations.
NIS2 isn’t the end of the story for critical infrastructure operators—it’s just the starting point. The shift to passwordless identity means that access itself becomes a stronger, more resilient line of defence.
With NIS2, identity becomes the perimeter. Passwordless identity security allows organisations to enforce strong access controls, reduce risk, and build resilience in an era where critical services must remain both operational and secure.
