Keyless is working with Oracle to help organizations fight threats and acclimatize to the new normal, with zero-trust authentication

Keyless is working with Oracle to help organizations innovate quickly and securely when it comes to user identity and authentication. Keyless is part of Oracle for Startups, Oracle’s global program to support entrepreneurs and innovators, and builds its solution on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

When looking to the post-pandemic work environment, 76% of organizations want to cultivate permanent remote-working spaces. Keyless is helping organizations adjust, by providing multi-factor authentication solutions that combine multimodal biometrics and device identification. This enables them to provide frictionless access to company data and systems from anywhere in the world.

Building on the highly secure Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Keyless will provide organizations with a way to fast-track the evolution of their authentication and identity management technologies, by adopting modern, cloud-based solutions that offer enhanced protection outside of the traditional network security perimeters. This migration will help organizations eliminate credential-based threats, enhance employee productivity and mitigate compliance risks in a post-COVID environment.

Keyless’ interoperable solutions leverage privacy-enhancing cryptography to help ensure biometric data and other personally identifiable information is protected from compromise. This enables organizations to embrace cutting-edge biometric solutions and mitigate compliance risks. 

Working with Oracle will help Keyless realize its vision to bring innovative and best-in-class identity solutions to the global market.

Keyless and Oracle partner to accelerate digital transformation with cloud-based security solutions

Biometric authentication firm, Keyless, partners with Finema to help organizations empower their users to have more control over their digital identities 

Keyless and Finema, a company dedicated to helping organizations construct their digital identity infrastructures by providing self sovereign and decentralized identity solutions, are joining forces to help accelerate adoption of these technologies.

As the concept of the digital economy continues to overtake traditional ways of doing business, privacy is becoming one of the key concerns for consumers. As a result, organizations can no longer focus on just trying to balance user experience and security. If they want to maintain the trust and loyalty of their customers – privacy needs to be high on the agenda.

Finema, the first decentralized digital identity company in Thailand, is among only a few in Asia who have developed proof and verification systems under the paradigm of self-sovereign identity (SSI). It is a world-changing technological concept in which a person is able to have absolute ownership of their digital identity. 

Adoption of blockchain-based services, such as digital wallets, has been painfully slow. Part of the reason is because organizations find it hard to move from traditional authentication services. Coupled with the fact that consumers themselves have concerns, around things such as privacy as well as usability – for example, some services require the creation of long, complex passwords, which in turn, can be lost – also contributes to the slow adoption rates. 

This is where Keyless steps in.  Biometric authentication software that is intuitive to use, will make it easy for users to enrol to, and begin benefitting from services offered on these technologies. Using the Keyless technology, users can do away with passwords, and instead manage their cryptographic keys, with device-agnostic biometrics. In this way, the user becomes the key and their biometric data is never stored on a single device, or in a single data centre.

Keyless differs from other biometric authentication vendors as it’s a software-only solution, meaning it doesn’t rely on manufacturer hardware or technology. That means Finema customers can quickly and easily deploy biometric authentication into their apps and services. 

Finema and Keyless will work together to accelerate adoption of their combined solution in a joint go-to-market strategy. 

Keyless is a privacy-first passwordless authentication and personal identity management company. They are the first to combine multi-modal biometrics with privacy-enhancing technologies and a distributed cloud network for biometric authentication. Keyless’ proprietary technology eliminates the need for businesses to centrally store and manage passwords, biometric data, and other sensitive personal identifiable information.

Founded in 2017 as the first decentralized digital identity company in Thailand, Finema aims to take the world forward with decentralized digital identity technology. Finema collaborates with both public and private sectors to implement innovative solutions to practical problems people encounter in their modern-day life. Finema believes in creating a positive impact, not just buzzwords. The company is a major player in decentralized digital identity development. 

For more information, visit https://finema.co/ or follow Finema on LinkedIn 

Keyless and Finema partner to accelerate adoption of self-sovereign and decentralized identity technologies

Keyless are excited to partner with Check Point Software Technologies to bring privacy-first biometric authentication to enterprises looking to enhance remote security. 

As organizations increasingly plan for a more people-centric approach, which requires location and device-independent solutions, this partnership comes at a good time. Integrated directly with Check Point’s VPN and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) protected applications, Check Point customers can now easily deploy zero-trust biometric authentication. This can be done in conjunction with their existing cyber security infrastructure, to help combat threats such as stolen credentials. 

Using Keyless’ biometric authentication software, Check Point customers can enable their employees to authenticate to corporate systems simply by looking into the front-facing camera of their device, eradicating the need for passwords. 

Keyless differs from other biometric authentication vendors as it’s a software-only solution. That means it doesn’t rely on manufacturer hardware or technology. The value to Check Point customers is that they can quickly deploy biometric authentication to employees without needing to overhaul or replace existing security infrastructure. 

Check Point and Keyless will work together to accelerate adoption of their combined solution in a joint go-to-market strategy.

Check Point Keyless Passwordless Authentication

Keyless partners with Check Point Software to bring privacy-first biometrics to enterprises

We’re excited to announce we’ve  joined the FIDO Alliance to help accelerate the Alliance’s mission to end over-reliance on passwords with our privacy-first biometric authentication solutions

 is a cross-industry coalition developing open, interoperable authentication standards that reduce reliance on passwords. The alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords.

Keyless is the first and only biometric vendor to achieve both FIDO2 and FIDO Biometrics Certification from the FIDO Alliance.*

 with zero-trust security to provide fast, frictionless authentication experiences that offer strong adherence to regulations such as GDPR and 

, a requirement of Europe’s revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2).

Ready to start your passwordless journey?

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

book in a short introductory session with a Keyless expert.

*This article was amended to include this new development.

Keyless joins the FIDO Alliance to help drive adoption of passwordless solutions

Keyless is now an official member of the FIDO Alliance

Tapping into the potential of multi-modal biometrics

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.

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

 has been slow, 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.

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.

Biometric security is a method of authentication that uses unique physical or behavioural characteristics to verify a person's identity.

Biometric security is already in use, on a consumer and enterprise level. Common examples include unlocking devices using a fingerprint or face scanning, and they’re increasingly used in applications such as banking, border control, and access control systems.

There are two main types of biometric security: physiological and behavioural. Both physiological and behavioural biometrics have their advantages and limitations, and may be more or less suitable depending on the specific application and security requirements.

An unimodal biometric security system will only use a form of biometric to allow the user to gain access. Whereas, a multi-modal biometric security system will use two or more biometric identifiers.

Some emerging biometric security methods include a wider range of biological traits, such as iris or retina patterns, voice, or even a person's typing rhythm.

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.

Behavioural 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.

Behavioural biometrics 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.

The reliability of unimodal biometric systems plays a part in this. Unimodal (or, single-modal) solutions are 

As a result, the reliability of single-modal biometrics is often questioned.

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

Frictionless security powered by the user’s identity, not what they know

When it comes to enabling fast, secure authentication in the workplace, biometrics are inherently user-friendly, and a multi-modal 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 recognises unusual behaviour (such as different keystrokes or tapping patterns), then it can log the user out.

The Keyless approach to multi-modal biometric authentication

At Keyless, we take a multi-modal approach to biometrics which allows us to leverage both physical and behavioural biometrics to offer a seamless multi-modal authentication solution. With this approach, it 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 behavioural modalities, like keystroke and swipe recognition.

How it works: using deep learning to ensure high-accuracy

To offer behavioural biometrics, we must first learn how users interact with their devices. At Keyless, 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 multi-modal 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

“Biometrics have the potential to make authentication dramatically faster, easier, and more secure than traditional passwords, but companies need to be careful about the biometric data they collect.” — Maria Korolov

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.

To gain a better understanding of how privacy-enhancing technologies can be leveraged to protect biometric data, you should read the following articles: 

Closing the gap between security and convenience with multi-modal authentication

By presenting multiple 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, multi-modal 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.

Interested in trialling Keyless to enable multi-modal biometric authentication?

Keyless™ multi modal authentication can help deliver secure and seamless digital experiences for your end-users and for remote workforces.

If you're interested in learning more about multi modal biometrics, or if you’d simply like to learn more about our technology, then please feel free to get in touch with our team. 

We’re always keen to have a chat about how we can help businesses on their journeys towards multi-modal biometric authentication.

As a certified ISV Partner, Microsoft Azure AD B2C customers can now easily deploy Keyless to provide frictionless, privacy-first MFA.

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.

Our privacy-first solutions leverage 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

1. 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.

3. 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. Head to our 

schedule a personalized demo with one of our 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.

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

 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

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 

. This change has been driven by a sharp 

Simply put, strong authentication is achieved when solutions combine at least two mutually–independent authentication 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, the number of passwords they have to keep safe, and the steady increase in hacking attacks and data breaches,  it’s safe to say passwords have lost their intuitiveness and effectiveness.

 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), and 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 is 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.

 is the usage of a 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 customer authentication, at least one of the authentication factors must be non-reusable.

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 

 being successful, one-time codes are not without risk.

Rather than verifying a user’s identity based on something they know or possess, inherence challenges authenticate users by validating something the user is.

The benefits of biometrics for Strong Customer Authentication

The use of biometrics for Strong Customer Authentication can offer several benefits to the user. Some of these benefits include:

Using biometrics for strong customer authentication offers a higher level of security compared to traditional authentication methods like passwords or PINs.

Biometric data is unique to each individual, making it more difficult for fraudsters to impersonate a legitimate user.

Biometric authentication is faster and more convenient than other authentication methods, such as entering a password. 

Users can simply use their fingerprint, face or voice to log in, making the process quick and easy.

When biometrics are used for strong customer authentication, it  provides a better user experience as it eliminates the need to remember and enter a password. This makes the login process smoother and more efficient.

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

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

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