Breaking

Showing posts with label Finger print. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Finger print. Show all posts

Friday, 6 May 2016

08:55

Forget that banking password, HSBC blazes trail with voice and fingerprint login

Forget that banking password, HSBC blazes trail with voice and fingerprint login

HSBC has announced that it's rolling out biometrics - namely fingerprint and voice recognition - to customers in an effort to bolster security with its online banking services.

The idea is you can forget your passwords (literally) and memorable questions (security questions based around memorable places, names and so forth) and just use your body for authentication instead.

The BBC reports that biometrics will be offered to some 15 million customers (which the bank notes is the "largest planned rollout of voice biometric security technology in the UK"), starting with those who bank with First Direct, and with HSBC's users following in the summer.

Fingerprint recognition is for iOS users as it will be delivered via Apple's Touch ID and the bank's mobile app.

Voice recognition, on the other hand, will be covered by Nuance (the firm which built the foundation for Siri's voice routines), and customers will simply establish their own voice print which future logins will be checked against.

Apparently the system will make use of over 100 unique vocal and physical properties, such as the cadence of speech, pronunciation, shape of the larynx and nasal passages.

Copes with colds

However, the bank promises it won't be foxed if a user should come down with a bug.

Joe Gordon, UK head of customer contact at HSBC, told the Beeb: "We will be able to cope with people who have got colds or slight impediments. Things such as the size of your mouth or your vocal tract don't change. Neither do your cadence or your accent when you've got those little colds."

Expect more banks to follow down this path, although some already have to a limited extent - Barclays does voice recognition but only for businesses at the moment.

Currently First Direct customers using online banking can login using a simple password and access limited functions, but if they want to do things like make payments, they must login with a secure key (a little number pad device which provides a PIN number sent directly from the bank as a second factor of authentication).

We'll be seeing a lot more of biometrics not just in the banking world, with biometric authentication expected to kill off the traditional password (and its often horrible lack of security given some of the passwords people choose, and then reuse).

Source:TechRadar 
0
By at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Sunday, 6 September 2015

17:22

Authentication Advances May Finally Kill Passwords and PINs

Authentication Advances May Finally Kill Passwords and PINs

More than two decades since a New Yorker cartoon joked that "on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog," banks are finally replacing old and not-so-reliable methods of authenticating customers — passwords and security questions — with sophisticated alternatives.

Voice biometrics, fingerprint detection, facial recognition and device ID are graduating from the pilot phase to wider deployment at a handful of financial institutions. And more innovative methods, including authentication based on smartphone activity, are being tested in university research labs. If successful, these technologies could deliver the combination of security and convenience that has eluded banks in their struggle to verify user identities and keep out impostors without hassling true customers.

The shift to next-gen authentication methods has been made possible by the convergence of several trends. One is the ubiquity of smartphones with high-quality microphones and cameras that make voice and facial recognition easy, and the availability of Apple's Touch ID fingerprint reader on iPhones for finger scanning.

Public awareness of data breaches and fraud issues has made consumers more willing to provide fingerprints, voiceprints and selfies to secure their financial information. And while financial institutions are driven by the need to make their growing volume of mobile and online transactions secure and convenient, they're also being pushed by a newer, related dynamic: their call centers are swamped with requests from consumers who want to reset lost, stolen or compromised passwords.

"The Target data breach generated more calls than we'd like to have taken in the call center," said Casey Royer, the enterprise voice solutions director at USAA, the poster child for biometrics technology in the U.S. financial services industry. "When we're not planning those calls, it's hard. We need to start barring the doors so we're more secure. We're hoping this [technology] matures so incidents become nonevents."

The Options

One authentication technology banks are starting to deploy is voice recognition.

"Voice recognition has the right combination of characteristics that are unique to the individual," said Dominic Venturo, chief innovation officer at U.S. Bank in Minneapolis. "The voice is easy to use and every mobile phone has the ability to hear a voice." The $404 billion-asset bank has been testing voice biometrics and aims to make it more widely available this year.

According to Opus Research, 41% of all global voice biometrics installations are implemented by financial institutions. Barclays, Santander, Tangerine, Wells Fargo, USAA and ING Netherlands are among those that have adopted this technology.

The quality of smartphones' built-in microphones is high enough to achieve accuracy rates above 90%, according to Brett Beranek, director of product strategy for voice biometrics at Nuance Communications. Barclays' wealth management unit, for instance, says it's achieved a 95% accuracy rate on its use of voice recognition in its call centers.

Fingerprint recognition is another option, one that Apple brought to the forefront by including Touch ID on iPhones and making it part of Apple Pay. First Internet Bank of Indiana, Canada's Tangerine Bank, American Express, Discover and USAA are among those using it to let customers log into mobile banking with the press of a finger.

"There is certainly a strong case for fingerprint and voice," in banking today, Venturo said.

Source:http://www.americanbanker.com/news/bank-technology/authentication-advances-may-finally-kill-passwords-and-pins-1074298-1.html
0
By at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,