Biometrics Enhancing Cyber Security: The threat to digital account security has increased over the last few years. According to a source, nearly one out of every four individuals has become a victim of a data breach over the previous eighteen months.
That’s horrifying!
The upcoming black Friday and cyber sales week would see a splurge in online transactions due to jaw-dropping prices. A September 2023 Adobe survey result showed that 71% of its respondents would shop during this period.
However, it is also when most cybercriminals find account vulnerabilities and breach them, leading to grievous financial losses for the end user. Biometrics have become a savior, revamping the user experience and security in multiple ways.
5 Ways Biometrics Boost Cyber Security
1. Eliminates Password Associated Risks
According to a Statista report, most US respondents faced password breaches once or twice in 2021. A minimal 3% of the audience reported that they became victims of account hacking ten times. Only 26% reported zero password breaches.
Poor password hygiene habits make accounts and data vulnerable to cyber-attacks. A biometric authentication system eliminates the risk of saving passwords online/offline or using a password manager, which has also become prone to hacking.
2. Eliminates the Risk of Tampering or Spoofing
Biometric authentication requires the identification of unique behavioral and physical characteristics of an individual. Therefore, they are hard to reproduce or replicate. Cybercriminals would require sophisticated mechanisms of accessing accounts secured with biometrics.
The best biometric systems have in-built geolocation, liveness detection, encryption, distributed data architecture, and other accompanying features to provide robust security to the end user.
Accounts secured with biometrics as a secondary authentication factor are more secure than PINs, OTPs, answers to security questions, and other identity verification methods. Moreover, if an account is secured with more than one biometrics, it enhances the user’s convenience while making the account inaccessible to cybercriminals.
3. Prevents Fraud
Account access also happens through hardware, which can get stolen or replicated without much effort by cybercriminals. Using biometric authenticating systems prevents access to unauthorized users by incorporating stringent security measures.
These methods include ensuring real user presence through liveness detection, authentication through designated or user devices, geofencing, etc. Nowadays, contactless biometric solutions incorporate the features of traditional systems and offer next-gen technologies to deliver enhanced organizational security & convenience.
Must Read: Can You Prevent Identity Theft Through Biometric Authentication?
4. Refrains from Credential Sharing
Using biometrics as an authentication mechanism prevents users from sharing sensitive credential details with friends, family members, or coworkers. Therefore, the risk of losing accounts through this mechanism is eliminated.
Moreover, unauthorized access was traditionally a significant problem associated with credential sharing. The involvement of biometrics in the system allows only authorized users to access accounts. Even if the user wants to share a report on a secondary system, it will request biometric verification to assure access to the account holder, allowing secure sharing.
5. Minimizes the Risk of Credential Theft
Systems assisted with biometrics make users less vulnerable to account theft by diminishing the user of similar credentials on multiple sites or devices. Moreover, the biometric data stored on the cloud is often encrypted, making the information unreadable to the hacker, resulting in higher security.
Unlike passwords, PINs, or OTPs, which have proven vulnerable to hacking in the last decade, biometric data is driven by unique patterns of an individual’s physical and behavioral characteristics. As a result, the risk of theft is minimal, especially for systems incorporating contactless biometrics because they even eliminate the risk of duplication.
Today, advanced biometric identity authentication solutions also send real-time alerts to administrators if they detect any attempt of tampering or spoofing in the system, allowing them to take action at any point.
6. Bonus Point: Make Transactions Easier
Remembering PINs during the account transaction process is challenging and can lead to account blockage if entered incorrectly more than three times. Account holders with multiple accounts may even find it hard to recall their transaction PIN during the purchase and abandon the cart.
On the other hand, biometrics make transactions secure and easier, minimizing the risk of account blockage and ensuring faster checkouts. Traders have already started using multifactor biometric authentication to ensure fraud-free transactions. Even banks are facilitating biometric and ID-linked applications.
Conclusion
Biometric authentication systems have revamped the cyber security of end users in multiple ways. They have allowed users to receive seamless access to their accounts without becoming victims of credential theft, identity fraud or theft, and identity duplication.
Moreover, such solutions have made the user journey passwordless, enhancing convenience and security. The best biometric solutions are assisted with geolocation, timestamps, geofencing, liveness detection, multifactor authentication, and other features.
As a result, biometrics have significantly revamped cyber security and user experiences. Schedule an appointment with our expert to learn more about the advantages biometric identity-as-a-service can offer to your organization.