How can organizations keep MFA secure without harming the user experience?

Reducing user friction starts with choosing factors that fit naturally into existing workflows, rather than adding steps that feel arbitrary or repetitive to end users throughout the day.

Practical ways to balance security and usability:

• Transparent certificate-based authentication: Once a device is provisioned, certificate-based login can work with minimal visible steps for the user.
• Simple possession factors: FIDO security keys typically require only a simple tap or touch rather than manual code entry.
• Single sign-on pairing: Combining strong authentication with SSO reduces how often users are prompted to authenticate throughout the day.
• Risk-based friction: Applying stricter verification only when contextual risk signals warrant it, rather than uniformly for every login.

Keeping security high without requiring repeated manual steps is less about choosing between security and convenience and more about selecting factor types where strong security is the natural, low-friction default rather than an added burden.