It’s been a good year to be a bad actor.
Cybercriminals reportedly stole a staggering 1 million account credentials per month between March 2016 and May 2017, throwing consumers’ financial identities into chaos. And that’s not all — about 45 percent of companies worldwide experienced a data breach in the past year.
For consumers and financial institutions, these recent developments can make it seemingly hard to ring in a happy new year. But there’s a silver lining: These developments are prompting FIs to consider several security-related resolutions for 2018.
The December PYMNTS Digital Identity Tracker™ looks at the ways that companies are investing in greater levels of authentication security in the face of an onslaught of keylogging, phishing and other threats assailing consumers’ accounts.
As fraudsters become more brazen and bold, some companies are turning to a unique solution to improve identity security: the human body.
Around the Digital Identity World
Thomson Reuters is bringing on the biometrics. The media and information company announced an agreement with Samsung to deploy the tech giant’s biometric authentication solutions on several products. The move enables Thomson Reuters customers to verify their identities with voice, face or fingerprint recognition solutions in place of passwords.
Even more biometric measures could be coming from Samsung down the line. The company is prepping for a security boost by turning to palm reading – from new tech, not fortune tellers, that is. Samsung recently patented a palm scanner that can be integrated into the back of a smartphone. According to current plans, users won’t be able to unlock devices with the touch of their hand, but instead an approved palm scan will prompt hints about the characters included in their passwords.
Meanwhile, Facebook is putting its best face forward in identity authentication. The social media company registered a patent for facial recognition software intended to confirm buyers’ identities at in-store retail locations.
Teaching Machines to Stop Fraud
And while some players are looking at biometrics solutions to boost their security, others are turning to machines to make identity analysis less about human physiology and more about human personality.
For this month’s Digital Identity Tracker, co-founder and CEO of German bank N26, Valentin Stalf, spoke with PYMNTS about how the financial institution aims to chart a new path in an effort to keep the identities and data of its user base secure.
Stalf said N26 is bypassing traditional ways of thinking, such as basing transaction security levels on destination or amount, and is utilizing AI and machine-learning solutions to create and analyze typical customer banking and payment behavior and flag suspicious transactions.
“I think, in general, our approach to security is to see what other banks have been doing wrong and try to improve on that,” Stalf said. “Our approach to security is a much more risk-based approach than other banks.”
To read the full feature story, along with the latest Digital Identity headlines, trends and rankings of 143 major providers, download the Tracker.
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To download the latest edition of the PYMNTS.com Digital Identity Tracker™, powered by Socure, fill out the form below.
About The Tracker
The PYMNTS.com Digital Identity Tracker™, powered by Socure, is a forum for framing and addressing key issues and trends facing the entities charged with efficiently and securely identifying and granting permission to individuals to access, purchase, transact or otherwise confirm their identities.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
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