Advancements in biometrics have reached a point where the technology can reliably replace passwords, eliminate threats, and enhance the customer experience all at once. It’s time for enterprises to take a multi-modal approach to biometric authentication and identity management.

Biometrics are fast, easy, and eliminate our reliance on passwords and PINs, however, despite their growing popularity and benefits, biometrics have their own unique challenges when it comes to widespread adoption, mainly due to reliability and privacy.

Most solutions on the market today only offer single-modal biometrics to authenticate users — this could be one of the reasons that that 

, particularly at the enterprise level in industries that would benefit most from the technology in terms of user experience, but require greater assurance that their users or employees are who they claim to be.

 of single-modal biometric systems plays a part in this. Single-biometric solutions are less likely to withstand advanced spoofing threats and are also less likely to correctly match biometric templates as a user’s physical characteristics change, whether due to the natural aging process or suddenly as a result of an accident or disability. As a result, the reliability of single-modal biometrics is often questioned.

Multi-modal biometrics offer a breakthrough solution to these challenges — empowering businesses to finally part ways with passwords and other archaic authentication methods.

Multi-modal solutions that combine physical and behavioral biometrics enable companies to enhance security, without disturbing the user experience.

The most popular biometric solutions leverage a user’s unique physical traits to authenticate them. Biometric templates are created by mapping a user’s unique physical traits. For example, at Keyless we use Neural Networks, a deep learning technique to extract high-dimensional feature vectors from sequences of images of the user’s face.

Behavioral biometrics, on the other hand, leverage deep learning to recognize unique patterns in how a user interacts with a device over time. These patterns could be based on how the user taps, swipes, or holds their device. Once patterns have been recognized, they can be transformed into biometric templates that can be used to monitor access to a user’s device in real-time.

 offer enhanced usability as they require no conscious effort from the user, allowing for continuous, frictionless authentication, enabling companies to frequently verify that a user is who they say they are, without disrupting the user. Physical biometrics, on the other hand, are better suited to one-time authentication, as they typically require conscious effort from the user.

Frictionless security powered by who the user is, not what they know

When it comes to enabling fast, secure authentication, because biometrics are inherently user-friendly, a 

 approach to authentication can directly solve the trade-off between convenience and security.

Multi-modal solutions give companies greater control over managing remote access to their private systems and data. For example, if an employee logs in but then the system recognizes unusual behavior (such as different keystrokes or tapping patterns), then it can log the user out.

The Keyless approach to biometric authentication

At Keyless we take a multi-modal approach to biometrics, leveraging both physical and behavioral biometrics to offer a seamless authentication solution that allows companies to reliably identify users.

The Keyless protocol allows for several physical biometric modalities including facial, fingerprint, voice, and iris recognition; as well as behavioral modalities like keystroke and swipe recognition.

Using deep learning to ensure high-accuracy

To offer behavioral biometrics, we must first learn how users interact with their devices. We do this by feeding deep-learning algorithms unique, user-generated data captured through sensors on the user’s mobile device.

Each input can be gauged on its reliability in authenticating an individual user. Once it’s considered reliable enough for identifying the user with high accuracy, the feature can be added to the user’s biometric templates.

Since biometrics are uniquely linked to the individual, it’s important that companies processing biometric data take extra measures to protect it against both new and emerging threats.

Keyless ensures that the biometric data we capture is never at risk of being stolen, compromised, or lost by combining multi-modal biometrics with privacy-enhancing technologies. The combination of privacy-enhancing technologies, deep-learning, and multi-modal biometrics uniquely addresses the greatest barriers facing the adoption of biometric authentication solutions.

Read these pieces to gain a better understanding of how we leverage privacy-enhancing technologies to protect biometric data: 

Keyless and Secure Multiparty Computation

Closing the gap between security and convenience

Multi-modal biometric solutions enable a high level of security without causing undue disruptions to the authentication experience. Rather, multi-modal solutions can enhance the authentication experience by offering frequent, unconscious authentication that can be used to detect advanced threats.

biometric challenges to users, multi-modal solutions

protect private systems and data in the rare event of successful spoofing attempts or account takeovers that take place after the point of authentication.

Thus multimodal biometric solutions can help companies close the gap between security and convenience, allowing for more seamless authentication and identity management experiences that enhance security and privacy compliance, without sacrificing the authentication experience or productivity.

Keyless™ authentication can help deliver secure and seamless digital experiences for your end-users and for your increasingly remote workforce.

Tapping into the potential of multi-modal biometrics

As a certified ISV Partner, Microsoft Azure AD B2C customers can now easily deploy Keyless to provide frictionless, privacy-first multi-factor authentication to their users.

We’re pleased to announce that we are now working with Microsoft as a certified ISV partner to help drive the adoption of passwordless authentication solutions so that businesses can eliminate threats caused by compromised and weak user credentials.

Keyless will provide Microsoft’s Azure AD B2C customers with a fast way to deploy secure, reliable biometric-enabled multi-factor authentication solutions to help strengthen security and eliminate passwords.

 advanced facial recognition technology and machine learning to seamlessly authenticate users without passwords. Users simply look into the front-facing camera of their trusted mobile device to access their accounts and services.

The Keyless partnership with Microsoft Azure AD B2C offers customers:

Rapid deployment of SCA compliant passwordless MFA solution

Keyless is designed to seamlessly integrate with existing IAM offerings so that businesses can quickly deploy strong passwordless authentication to their users.

Keyless is compatible with all modern devices and operating systems, so businesses can now provide their users with a unified authentication experience across devices and platforms.

Multimodal biometrics for enhanced security

Our multimodal approach to biometric authentication means that businesses can have greater assurance a user is who they claim to be online.

Keyless offers multi-factor security by design by combining multimodal biometrics with device identification. Each time a user attempts to authenticate we also verify that the authentication request is being launched from their trusted device.

Keyless users are only able to enroll for biometric authentication once. This means that users have one set of biometric templates across all their devices and accounts — even for different services. This helps prevent advanced spoofing attacks and credential sharing.

Our novel use of privacy-enhancing technologies allows us to perform secure biometric authentication that does not jeopardize user privacy — biometric data is never at risk of being stolen, lost, or compromised.

To learn more about how Keyless can help you deploy lighting fast authentication to your users, 

visit our listing on Microsoft Azure AD B2C.

Keyless can help deliver secure, seamless digital experiences for your end-users.

 to book a personalized demo with one of our integration specialists.

Alternatively, you can email us directly at 

Keyless is now working with Microsoft Azure AD B2C

cyber threats targeting the enterprise reaching new heights last year

, and the deadline for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) 

 companies operating within Europe will be wondering how to protect their users and workforce from threats, without adding further disruptions to workflow or complexity to the login experience.

Without disregarding the deadline for SCA, it’s important that businesses avoid rushing to adopt solutions that are inherently complex and insecure, such as those that are partly dependent on passwords or legacy 2FA authentication, as these methods can still leave private systems 

Security and IT leaders must instead prepare to adopt intuitive authentication solutions that make strong, secure authentication as easy as possible for the user. To free us from our dependency on outdated authentication technology, we must start considering how user-friendly authentication technology, like biometrics, can be leveraged to enhance security.

Users are ready for biometrics, is Europe?

There’s really only one option when it comes to strong authentication: the simplicity and accuracy of biometrics can enhance security and the login experience all at once.

Since biometrics are unique to each user and require little conscious effort, they can help solve many of the user-experience and security pain points associated with more cumbersome authentication methods, like usernames and passwords, or email and SMS two-factor authentication. Their inherent simplicity is the exact reason 

users have become becoming increasingly comfortable using biometrics

 to access their personal devices and accounts.

However, despite the clear benefits, the adoption of biometric solutions at the enterprise level has been slow in Europe 

compared to Asia, Africa, and Latin American markets

. One obvious reason for this trend is that companies operating in the European Union are under more regulatory pressure to protect sensitive biometric data under the General Data Protection Regulation.

Thus, processing sensitive biometric data, which cannot be readily changed in the event of a privacy breach, comes with an unprecedented level of responsibility — a burden that many businesses simply don’t want to carry.

The good news is that solutions leveraging privacy-enhancing technologies directly address the issue of privacy in relation to the use of biometrics.

Privacy-enhancing technologies is an umbrella term for a range of advanced cryptographic techniques for processing, storing, and managing private data in a way that does not expose the data to any party involved in the process.

Privacy-enhancing technologies can essentially be leveraged to securely store private authentication data on the cloud using distributed systems. While this might not mean anything to the average user, the ability to securely store biometrics on a distributed cloud network is nothing short of revolutionary in cybersecurity.

 — lock biometric data to a user’s device, essentially marrying a user to it and as a result creating a chain reaction of user-experience issues if the user loses access to that device.

Distributed cloud storage gives users more control, as they can essentially use one set of biometrics across multiple-devices. In terms of user experience, this allows for features such as biometric-enabled account backup and recovery and multi-device registration.

In terms of enabling strong security, this means that companies can have greater assurance that a user is who they say they are (as each user only has one set of biometrics for all their devices).

For companies using legacy authentication solutions (usernames and passwords) that rely on centralized databases to store private credentials, the transition to private-by-design distributed cloud systems can reduce the impact of security breaches, helping to restore trust and improve relationships with employees, users, and external stakeholders.

The future of security depends on our ability to make authentication fast, easy, and as minimally disruptive to the user-journey as possible.

Solutions that replace cumbersome authentication methods, with user-friendly, privacy-first solutions will dramatically improve their security and compliance posture, without impeding productivity or user-experience.

It’s up to companies whether or not they’re ready to embrace this step change. Those that do will become significantly more resilient to threats, and attractive to customers.

 to learn more about our biometric authentication and identity management solutions.

Embracing user-friendly authentication is key to strong security in Europe

2020 has been a year like no other. Yet despite the many challenges we’ve faced — we’ve managed to scale our company and launch a full suite of passwordless authentication products and services for the enterprise.

The year that pushed the world to passwordless

Like all businesses, new and old, we’ve had our company direction rerouted by the result of unprecedented travel restrictions, lockdowns, a global recession, and the tumultuous political and social movements that captured and held the attention of people all around the world.

The events of this unforgettable year forced businesses to adapt to how they operate — and one positive outcome we noticed is that this has catapulted enterprises into an era of accelerated digital transformation. We’ve seen unprecedented recognition for the need to protect critical systems and data with zero-trust security solutions — and as a result we’re seeing an increasing appetite for passwordless authentication solutions like ours, that are powered by privacy-first technology.

In what was already a turning point year for passwordless authentication, the urgency for privacy-first, zero-trust solutions has been continually fueled by high profile hacks and breaches such as the Russian led Solar Winds Attack on the US government agencies, the Twitter hack that targeted the followers of high profile users and the ongoing Spotify hacks… to name just a few.

Read more on what our CTO and co-founder has to say on COVID-19 driving adoption of passwordless solutions…

At this time last year, we’d only just finished building out our platform’s core technology — 

. The Keyless Protocol combines privacy-enhancing technologies with modern biometrics to enable real-time biometric authentication powered by the Keyless Network. The Keyless Network utilizes a distributed cloud architecture to process and store encrypted authentication data.

Breakthroughs in biometric authentication

We successfully applied for five patents to date for our novel technology — of these, one is a non-provisional patent, and four are provisional. Our breakthroughs in privacy-first, distributed biometric authentication are enabling a shift away from device-dependent authentication, towards a more unified and user-friendly authentication experience.

The breakthrough shift from device-dependent biometric authentication, to device in-dependent biometric authentication, means we can use a single, universal set of biometric templates to authenticate and identify users across multiple devices, in a way that enhances privacy compliance, rather than impeding it.

As a result we’re able to provide secure, private and user-friendly solutions that can help solve some of the larger issues around how we manage identities across the internet.

Since biometric data is considered sensitive, personal information, the use of biometrics is regulated in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe, and other similar regulations around the world such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States.

We’ve made significant headway validating our compliance stance with these regulations, as well as with directives such as the Revised Payments Services Directive (PSD2), which mandates what strong-customer authentication solutions should provide.

In total we’ve completed five compliance assessments this year, and have been actively engaging industry alliances, such as the FIDO Alliance, to educate certification bodies around the benefits of applying privacy-enhancing technologies and distributed cloud systems to biometric-enabled authentication.

Rapid growth, and US $6.2 million in backing

This year we not only scaled our team, going from 15 to 32 employees in under twelve months, which forced us to move into brand new offices in the centers of Rome and London. We also 

 — a tremendous sign of confidence in uncertain times.

Putting Keyless on the passwordless radar

In just one year, we’ve managed to build, test and launch a total of five products that serve the full spectrum of enterprise use cases for workforce and consumer passwordless authentication.

Our workforce authentication products suite includes passwordless authentication solutions for single sign-on (SSO) with providers such as Okta and Microsoft, VPN, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Windows Workstation Login — all powered by the Keyless Authenticator.

Check out our Workforce Authentication solutions here…

The Keyless Authenticator is an app that users or employees can download on any of their devices to enable seamless, privacy-enhancing access to all of these services.

For consumer authentication, we offer the Keyless SDK for both Android and iOS platforms. The Keyless SDK can be integrated into existing applications in a matter of hours. It offers fast, secure and frictionless, consumer multi-factor authentication (MFA) powered by the Keyless technology.

Check out our consumer authentication solutions here…

On top of launching these products, we’ve partnered with the leading IAM and cloud providers so that customers can integrate and deploy our passwordless solutions quickly and easily.

We’ve so far partnered with Microsoft, Okta, and ForgeRock to help expand their identity management solutions with privacy-first passwordless authentication. We’ve also partnered with IBM and Cisco.

Partnering with Cisco to help universities adapt quickly to remote-learning

One of the achievements our team is most proud of is the first commercial deployment of our passwordless authentication technology in the education sector.

 to help Luiss Guido Carli University, one of Rome’s leading higher education institutions, facilitate secure, remote authentication for students and staff during online classes and exams.

Unlike other passwordless solutions, Keyless offers Unique Student (or user) Identification. We can offer this feature because, with Keyless, users have one universal set of biometric templates that are used across all their devices and accounts. This means that it’s impossible for users to login to their accounts on another device using a different set of biometrics, essentially giving our clients much higher assurance that a user is who they claim to be online.

While Luiss University was a huge success for us, it wasn’t the only deployment we’ve been working on this year.

Luiss University was our first live commercial deployment, however we currently have a number of customers in the Banking and Fintech and Aerospace and Defense industries who are all currently testing Keyless in pilot stage within their organizations.

Between these customers, we’re currently processing five thousand biometric authentication requests per day from approximately 15 thousand users.

$600k secured in awards and recognized by Gartner

Bans on international travel this year didn’t stop us from being invited to participate in a number of technology and cybersecurity competitions around the world. Some of these competitions have awarded us with cash-prizes, which are going directly into improving our product and services. A special thanks to 

identified by Gartner as a leading biometric vendor

 in this year’s Hype Cycle for Identity and Access Management Technologies. It’s particularly encouraging to be recognized by Gartner as one of the leading biometric solutions that’s helping companies tackle the evolving threat landscape head on.

This year, we’ve not only witnessed the fast-tracked adoption of cloud-first platforms, zero-trust technology and passwordless authentication, we’ve seen what impacts a lack of preparedness and unrealized digital strategy can have on organizations who are faced with unforeseen challenges. By merging modern biometrics with zero-trust, privacy-enhancing technologies, we’re able to provide a breakthrough scalable solution that can readily help companies on their journey towards a more secure and private future.

We’re humbled and excited by the industry recognition we’ve received for technology so far — and believe this proves that the demand for solutions that place equal importance on user privacy, security and usability is limitless.

Our co-founder, Fabian Eberle, talks about the future of enterprise security and biometric authentication in this short video.

Out of darkness often comes light, and so we are hoping that as we head into a fresh year, that despite the urge to return to normal, that we are able to maintain the momentum gained during the last twelve months.

With the shift to remote and flexible work and the subsequent increased importance on being able to verify that someone is who they claim to be online, organizations around the globe are starting to recognise why we must act fast to converge authentication with identity proofing in the online realms. It’s not simply enough for a user to prove that they know or have something, they must also prove that they are who they claim to be — something that can only be achieved using advanced biometrics combined with machine learning.

We are confident that organizations sustain their interest in adopting solutions that leverage emerging technologies to enable more secure, reliable and privacy-focused authentication and identity management.

For us as a company, we plan to continue helping enterprises on their path towards a zero-trust, passwordless future by building out capabilities for our workforce and consumer authentication solutions, while accelerating our go-to-market efforts in Europe.

A beginner’s guide to Shamir’s Secret Sharing

Take a deep-dive into one of the core building blocks of Keyless. Shamir’s Secret Sharing enables the secure transfer of encrypted biometric templates to and from our network.

What could have prevented 2020’s massive Twitter Hack

One of the biggest breaches to capture our attention this year was the Twitter attack that targeted the likes of Jeff Bezos and other high profile users… read our blog to learn how Keyless could have stopped this breach.

In this piece we take a look at the usability and security limitations faced by some of the most well known authentication solutions on the market

Keyless offers enhanced security, privacy and usability than other biometric authentication solutions — in this piece we explain how.

Keyless Update: Our Year in Review

As more businesses in Europe move to adopt multi-factor solutions that comply with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), we thought we’d explain what strong authentication actually is.

To give a little background, financial institutions and e-commerce platforms in Europe must change how they authenticate users by the 1st January 2021 under the revised 

 (PSD2). This change has been driven by a sharp rise in 

So as Europe gets ready to adopt strong customer authentication (SCA) solutions that are compliant with PSD2 , we thought we’d cut through the noise to give you a clear breakdown on what 

To put it simply, strong authentication is achieved when solutions combine at least 

keep reading to learn more about the three factors

to confirm a user’s identity and grant access to private accounts, systems and data.

Passwords are still clinging onto their place as the number one means of verifying a user’s identity online, but are they still sufficient in protecting users from threats? With the volume of digital accounts each user has (and by result number of passwords they have to keep safe), alongside a steady increase in 

hacking attacks and data breaches caused by compromised credentials

 — it’s safe to say passwords have lost their intuitiveness 

 effectiveness when it comes to mitigating unauthorized access.

Solutions providing multi-factor authentication (MFA) combine at least two independent authentication challenges in order

to provide a solution that is more resilient to threats and account takeovers.

Multi-factor authentication solutions integrate at least two of the below challenge factors:

The 3 authentication challenge factors — knowledge (verifying something the user knows), possession (verifying something the user has), inherence (verifying something the user is).

Knowledge challenges verify that a user knows something that no one else does. Common examples are passwords and PINs. In reality, passwords and PINs are readily shared and compromised — making knowledge-based challenges one of the least reliable methods for verifying a user’s identity online.

Possession challenges verify that the user has something in their possession that no one else does. In the context of consumer authentication, proving a user has possession of something is usually done by delivering one-time passwords via push notifications or SMS to a user’s trusted device or phone number. In the workforce, employees could be given swipe cards or USB tokens.

Inherence challenges verify that a user 

 something. Essentially this is verifying the unique characteristics and traits of an individual by way of biometric sensors.

Having two mutually independent factors enhances security by enabling an additional security layer. This means that even if one factor is compromised, private accounts, systems and data are all theoretically still protected, so long as the second factor hasn’t also been compromised.

A real-world example for multi-factor authentication is the usage of credit card (something the user has) with a PIN code (something the user knows).

MFA vs strong customer authentication (SCA)

The European Central Bank takes security one step further and says that to enable strong authentication, at least one of the authentication factors must be 

A common example of a non-reusable authentication challenge is a one-time authentication code sent to a user’s device, for example a push-notification or SMS-token.

One-time codes are by nature less likely to be compromised, making the challenge response more resilient to threats, however, 

with four out of five SIM swapping attacks being successful, one-time codes are not without risk.

Rather than verifying a user’s identity based on something they 

, inherence challenges authenticate users by validating 

The benefit of authenticating users via their biometrics is that biometrics are much harder for an attacker to steal or fake.

This is especially true when solutions take a multi-modal approach to biometrics.

Multimodal biometrics are when a user is authenticated via both physical and behavioral traits unique to them, essentially a form of biometric two-factor authentication.

verified a user’s unique facial measurements

 (using facial recognition technology), alongside their 

 (the way they interact with their device).

Because of their layered approach, multi-modal biometrics can give companies extremely high assurance that a user is who they claim to be online, without disrupting the user-journey or adding undue complexity.

At Keyless we combine inherence and possession factors to provide fast, secure, user-friendly authentication that is resilient to common threats including phishing, credential stuffing and SIM-swapping attacks.

1. Our first factor is inherence (something the user is)

multi-modal biometrics, combined with advanced liveness detection and anti-spoofing technology, 

to verify that a user is who they say they are, both at the point of authentication and continuously as they user accesses private systems and accounts. The intuitiveness offered by multimodal biometrics allows our clients to strengthen access control security, without jeopardizing on productivity or user-experience.

2. Our second factor is possession (something the user possesses)

 to ensure that each authentication request is launched from a user’s trusted device without needing to send a push-notification to the user’s device. The combination of inherence and possession factors allows for seamless, strong authentication that is resilient to a wide range of threats facing enterprises, while also being intuitive to the user, and minimally disruptive to workflow.

The deadline for financial institutions and e-commerce platforms in Europe to implement SCA is fast approaching.

When executed properly, strong authentication should not disrupt the user-experience or make authentication more challenging for the user. Instead, strong authentication should enhance employee and customer experiences while protecting your company from privacy and security threats.

Keyless passwordless solutions are PSD2 compliant and designed to seamlessly integrate with existing security and identity management infrastructure, so that you can quickly deploy biometric-enabled passwordless solutions to your remote workforce and users.

Interested in how Keyless can help you achieve SCA compliance ? Request a free demo.

Keyless™ authentication can help deliver secure, seamless digital experiences for your end-users and for your increasingly remote workforce.

 with one of our specialists to learn more about how our biometric authentication and identity management solutions.

What is strong authentication?

Strongholds must be built around each individual’s identity, but what’s the best way to do this in an era of hyper-connectivity? Biometric solutions are our best answer.

The ways in which employees access corporate systems have changed dramatically. The shift to remote working, alongside the sheer volume of devices being used to access private networks, must be the wake-up call to reevaluate and modernize security strategies.

The security perimeter has shifted from the office to user end-points, and now finally to the end-user itself and their identity. The question being asked is not whether or not identity is the new perimeter, it’s how can it best be protected?

How can companies ensure that on-premise and cloud services are safe, while employees and third parties are suddenly requesting access to private systems from all over the world?

The answer to securing the new perimeter lies in rethinking how we authenticate and validate identities in the era of digitization.

identities are too commonly guarded with weak credentials like email addresses and passwords. 

These methods are inherently insecure, leaving companies and their users susceptible to privacy and security threats.

Not only are login credentials at extremely high risk of being compromised in breaches, (Computer Weekly reports that there are over 

15 billion credentials for sale on the dark web

), users also still disregard password best practices, insisting on sharing passwords, PINs, and other login data, despite the known risks.

In an increasingly connected world, weak credentials expose organizations and individuals to large-scale threats. 

To make matters more complicated, criminals are exponentially adept at using compromised email addresses and passwords to breach end-points and networks.

Since one set of compromised credentials can enable a bad actor to breach an 

 network, it’s imperative that we rethink authentication and identity management.

Identity is the new cybersecurity frontier — but who can companies trust?

The answer is no one. By implementing a 

 approach to authentication and identity management, companies can ensure that only the right users have access to the right systems, at the right time.

Zero-trust models differ from traditional security models in that they assume that nobody can be trusted (whether they’ve previously gained access to a network or not). This means users will need to continuously authenticate to prove their identity.

Read our blog on zero-trust security to gain a deeper understanding of zero-trust security models…

The Keyless solution: Passwordless Biometrics

 to provide seamless and secure passwordless solutions for the workforce and consumers.

Our solutions are uniquely designed to ensure that biometric data is never at risk of being compromised, lost, or stolen, empowering our clients to harness the security and convenience of biometric authentication. To offer strong-authentication, Keyless verifies that each authentication request is launched from a user’s trusted device, offering another layer of security that is minimally disruptive yet reliable.

With built-in multi-factor authentication, our passwordless, biometric solutions offer unmatched security, privacy, and usability.

Our solutions enable companies to properly secure identities, end-points and networks, from anywhere in the world, without compromising on user-experience, or productivity.

In an increasingly digital world where cyberattacks are the number one threat against organizations, it’s critical that companies leverage biometrics to enhance security and transform their authentication and identity management experiences.