by Angela Guess
Ben Dickson recently wrote in TechCrunch, “The fact that plain passwords are no longer safe to protect our digital identities is no secret. For years, the use of two-factor authentication (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) as a means to ensure online account security and prevent fraud has been a hot topic of discussion… [M]any basic multi-factor authentication tokens can be circumvented by malicious users, which effectively renders them useless against hacks. These complexities and flaws are proving to be an obstacle in the widespread integration of 2FA and MFA technologies, which in turn results in millions of insecure accounts that get hijacked and compromised on a yearly basis. In 2015 alone, nearly 200 million users lost their account credentials to malicious hackers.”
Dickson goes on, “So how can you enhance account security without disrupting the user experience? The answer might be found in big data and analytics, two trends that have proven their worth in many industries. The idea is to unobtrusively gather information from several sources, including user behavior and device usage, to create a profile that is unique to the account owner and cannot be stolen or replicated by fraudulent users. The next steps would be to use the profile to detect activities that hint at malicious activity and only then initiate extra authentication steps to make sure the account hasn’t been hijacked or compromised.”
He goes on, “This model has many strengths. It’s not something you lose, such as physical tokens; it doesn’t require extra memorization efforts; it can’t be stolen or replicated, such as passcodes, or even fingerprint and retina scans; and, above all, it’s not cumbersome and it doesn’t introduce extra complexities to the user experience. This approach has become possible as a result of dramatic decreases in data storage costs and the explosion of cloud services, data collection technologies and advancements in web platforms and mobile technology. Several implementations of this concept are already showing promising signs.”
Photo credit: Flickr/ gurms