Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison announced plans to eliminate passwords for Oracle employees by next year. At Oracle CloudWorld in Las Vegas, Ellison criticized traditional passwords as “insecure and easy to steal.”
“The idea that we use passwords is a ridiculous idea. It’s obsolete. It’s very dangerous,” Ellison said. He noted that even complex passwords “are unbelievably easy to steal.”
Instead, Oracle will adopt biometric security measures like facial and fingerprint recognition. Ellison believes these methods are more secure and user-friendly than passwords. “Biometric logins are much easier to use—they’re much faster and much more secure,” he explained. You point your smartphone to your face for a couple of seconds, or you put your fingerprint on the sensor.
Ellison proposes biometrics over passwords
However, biometric technology is not without risks.
In 2020, facial recognition company Clearview AI was hacked, exposing its client list. Facial recognition systems used by UK police have also had high failure rates, misidentifying innocent people as criminals. Another concern is the rise of deepfake technology, which can create fake videos and audio.
In one case, a Hong Kong finance worker was tricked into paying $25 million to scammers using the deepfake voice of the company’s CFO. As Oracle leads the shift away from passwords, the industry will be watching to see how well biometric measures protect against evolving cyber threats. Organizations must carefully consider the potential vulnerabilities and ethical implications of adopting this new technology.
