Teams often spend disproportionate energy on password complexity while treating recovery paths as an afterthought. Attackers notice that asymmetry and exploit it.
Every backup email, carrier-controlled phone number, printed recovery code, and support override script is effectively part of the same authentication surface. If one is weak, the overall account is weak.
Good recovery design means fewer stale methods, better logging, stronger identity verification, and explicit review of who can manually override a reset.