Don’t want to get hacked? Just throw away all your gadgets and go live in the forest.
It’s time to admit: the password era is coming to an end. Not because someone at the top decided so — but because it’s crumbling from below. Modern hackers don’t waste time on complex hacks or writing epic exploits — they just log in. With a username. And a password. Yours.
Sounds absurd, but this is already reality. More and more attacks are based not on hacking, but on simply using stolen credentials. You might feel confident about your digital security, but at the same time, your password could be sitting in the dark web — in one of the millions of databases leaked online every day. And someone might buy it. Or download it for free.
The main culprit? Malware known as infostealers. These programs steal logins and passwords directly from infected devices: browsers, cookies, sessions, autofill — everything you conveniently stored so you wouldn’t have to remember it a hundred times. According to a recent IBM X-Force report, the number of infostealer attacks grew by 84% over the past year, and in early 2025 alone, the figure has already jumped by 180% compared to the same period in 2023. It’s basically an avalanche.
Infostealers spread through phishing, fake ads on Google, infected websites, and even compromised supply chains. You might not have even noticed — just clicked the wrong link. And now your passwords are up for sale. There are currently around 8 million active listings in the dark web selling stolen login credentials. The total number? At least 800 million logins and passwords. And that’s only what’s been tracked.
You might think: "Well, I have two-factor authentication, I’m safe." Sorry. Hackers have learned to bypass that too — via man-in-the-middle attacks and stolen session cookies. It’s like calling your bank, and instead of a real employee, you're talking to an attacker — but the bank still thinks everything’s fine.
So what can you do? Ditch passwords. Seriously. More and more in the IT world, a single word is being heard: passkey — access keys that work with no passwords at all. Google and Microsoft officially recommend switching to them — as soon as possible. And not just for accounts, but for anything involving digital identity.
How does it work? Each passkey is a pair of keys: a public one and a private one. The public key is stored on the server, the private one — on your device. When you try to log into a service, the system sends a challenge that only your private key can respond to. That key is never transmitted, copied, or shown in your browser. It just sits on your phone or laptop and activates via biometrics — like a fingerprint or Face ID.
This makes "watch-and-type" attacks impossible. There’s nothing to see and nothing to type. Meaning — nothing to steal. What’s more, passkeys automatically sync across your devices via Apple iCloud or, for example, 1Password. Even if you lose your phone, you can restore access on another device just by logging into your account.
This isn’t some experimental tech. It’s an actively rolling-out reality. Passkeys aren’t just convenient. They’re the only way to defend yourself in a world where...
