BKYI - Passwordless Is All The Rage — But There Are Considerations To Be Made
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It has long beenknown that passwords are vulnerable to hacking.
Organizations around theworld have acknowledged this risk over the years by introducing morestringent controls around password security and by creating awarenessamong their staff.
Despite the rising awareness of the risks associated with weakpasswords, data breaches have revealed that not enough attention ispaid to the creation of secure passwords –- the mostpopular passwords around the world are still passwords like“password” and “123456.”
According to Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT),579 attacks to hack a password occur every second, which adds up to amonumental 18 billion attacks per year.
But many common practices for making passwordsstronger through complex requirements like including symbols, casesensitivity, and disallowing previous passwords only make it harder onusers. Passwords become incredibly inconvenient to create, rememberand manage across the various accounts a person owns.
Because using passwords can create a pooruser experience, many people often end up ignoring even basic passwordprotocols – leaving themselves and their organizations defenselessagainst phishing schemes, brute-force attacks, and other tacticscybercriminals use to hack passwords.
Is PasswordlessAuthentication The Solution?
An ideal scenario seemingly might be one where nopasswords are required, and several alternative options have emergedfor the passwordless authentication of users. While many people andcompanies focus on the convenience of going passwordless, the securityconsiderations of passwordless authentication are oftenoverlooked.
Themost commonly used passwordless authentication methods focus onreplacing the password as a single method, or as one of the methodsused for multi-factor authentication. Authentication methods that aremost commonly used are either possession factors, which require theperson to use a smartphone or hardware token, or device-basedbiometrics, such as Apple Touch ID or Windows Hello.
These options presenttheir own challenges. Possession factors, such as smartphones orhardware tokens can be stolen, shared, lost, or damaged, resulting inusers being locked out or allowing unauthorized access. And the costsand investment in purchasing multiple tokens or separate mobiledevices with data plans for staff could be very high for largeorganizations. Not to mention there are large portions of people whodo not have access to a smartphone.
Finally, there are scenarios that make these factorsimplausible to use. For example, manufacturing floors, contactcenters, banking locations, and others have people working who need toauthenticate but where it may not be safe or practical for them tocarry an additional device.
Identity-Bound Biometrics Removesthe Need for Phones and Tokens
One method of passwordless authentication thatcould effectively address these challenges is the use of I dentity-BoundBiometrics (IBB) for access management, which is offered by cybersecurity companies like BIO-key International Inc. (NASDAQ:BKYI).
Identity-bound biometrics creates a centralized uniquebiometric identity that can be used to verify a person anywhere. Someof the most common identity-bound biometric authentication methods arefingerprint scans, palm scans, face scans, iris scans, and voicerecognition.
Passwordless authentication with IBB can be as simple as thescan of a finger at any device in any location, making it a safe,efficient, cost-effective, and secure option for a range of common usecases, including shared workstations, remote access, and scenarioswhere mobile devices are not permitted such as manufacturing floorsand contact centers as mentioned previously.
BIO-key says its IBBprocess centrally stores biometric data in a nonreversible way tocreate a unique biometric identity for each user to verify the persontaking action, which serves to establish trust and accountabilitybased on a person's biometric identity.
The benefits of using IBB include:
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Positivelyidentifying the user intended to gain access
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Auditability of activities through a logthat records all logins and tracks users' system access
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Ease of use with a quick andeasy user experience requiring only single-touch authentication for apasswordless login
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Reduced overall cost by installing just onefingerprint scanner per desktop as a one-time investment as opposed tomultiple tokens or mobile devices
IBB is part ofBIO-key's unified identity and access-management platform PortalGuard , whichprovides a range of authentication methods as part of its robustmulti-factor authentication, as well as single sign-on andself-service password reset capabilities. PortalGuard is the onlyplatform on the market that offers all these business-criticalsolutions using identity-bound biometrics as a key differentiator whenit comes to implementing stronger authentication, according toBio-key.
To learn more aboutBIO-key’s IBB passwordless authentication products visit its website .
BIO-key isrevolutionizing authentication and cybersecurity withbiometric-centric, multi-factor identity and access management (IAM)software managing millions of users. Its cloud-based PortalGuard IAMsolution provides cost-effective, easy to deploy, convenient andsecure access to devices, information, applications, and high-valuetransactions. BIO-key's patented software and hardware solutions,with industry-leading Identity-Bound Biometric (IBB) capabilities,enable large-scale Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) solutions, as well ascustomized on premises solutions.
This post containssponsored advertising content. This content is for informationalpurposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.
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