Authentication Adaptability: Survival is Key
Filed under: Authentication Trends, General Information, PortalGuard, Uncategorized, compliance
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin
As Charles Darwin has put it so eloquently, facing change by adapting to it is how you survive. This can easily be translated over to authentication and the principles behind strengthening authentication to adapt to changing circumstances.
The idea is that change is inevitable and businesses will be weeded out by their ability to adapt. With authentication and security this is an ongoing challenge facing businesses in the form of regulatory compliance, authentication trends and ever increasing attacks.
Although this is primarily experienced across most industries it is an ever pressing issue on the financial, insurance and healthcare industries. These industries are heavily regulated and thus subject to constant compliance requirements. Also they are huge carriers of personal information and data making them huge targets for evolving attacks and identity theft.
Some of the more prevalent attacks include:
- Phishing
- Malware
- Keystroke Loggers
- Session Mismanagement
- Fraudulent Droid apps
- Chat-in-the-Middle
- Spoofing
- Vishing
- Smishing
- And many more…
An adaptation example, in the financial industry, has been the popularity and increasing use of online banking. Although it is extremely convenient for the end-users, the question is how will the financial industry adapt their authentication to protect users’ extremely sensitive data out on the internet?
In order to adapt financial institutions follow the FFIEC guidelines, implement multi-factor authentication and stronger authentication such as one-time passwords. The financial industry is required to have a high level of data protection and therefore is leading the way in authentication and security. By reviewing vulnerable industries it is a great way to understand where to set the bar for your required level of data protection.