In one of 2024’s most costly and avoidable cybersecurity breaches, hackers infiltrated systems tied to Clorox and Cognizant by exploiting a familiar weakness, passwords. The fallout? Disrupted operations, reputational damage, and a $380 million lawsuit. But the issue isn’t just about these companies, it’s a reflection of how fragile password-based security has become in today’s threat landscape.
A Wake-Up Call to Ditch Passwords for Good
In the latest high-profile breach making headlines, hackers exploited the usual weak link, passwords, to infiltrate systems tied to Clorox and Cognizant. The damage? Disrupted operations, shaken trust, and a massive $380M lawsuit. But the real lesson here isn’t just about one company’s misfortune. It’s about the outdated reliance on passwords that continues to leave the door wide open for attackers.
Passwords Are the Problem (and the Target), Not the Solution
Despite decades of security innovation, most organizations still hinge a good portion of their digital defenses on the same flawed concept: passwords. They’re easy to forget, often misused and reused, and easily phished or cracked. And for hackers, passwords are low-hanging fruit. In most breaches, they’re not picking locks, they’re walking through the front door with stolen keys
No Password = No Target
The smartest move security teams can make isn’t just tightening password policies or relying on passwords vaults, it’s eliminating passwords entirely. When there’s nothing to steal, there’s no easy way in. By removing the target—credentials that can be phished, socially engineered away, sold, or reused, organizations dramatically reduce their attack surface. Hackers, facing hardened, passwordless defenses, often look for easier prey.
The Future is Passwordless
Modern authentication methods like passkeys, hardware tokens, biometrics, and certificate-based access offer stronger security but are often difficult to deploy or have limited availability for browser-based applications where hundreds to thousands of applications are still being protected by vulnerable passwords. Unixi’s Universal SSO, works for any browser-based application, requires zero application integration and relies on a cryptographic authentication methodology called Key Derived Authentication. Users no longer have passwords and there are no passwords saved anywhere taking away the very target hackers seek.
It’s Time to Move On
The Clorox-Cognizant breach is just the latest reminder that passwords are a ticking time bomb. If your organization is still relying on them, you’re not just behind, you’re exposed. It’s time to shift from reactive password patching to proactive password elimination.
Because when there’s nothing to steal, hackers go elsewhere.
