Strengthening authentication through big data
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.
Technological advances, especially in the mobile industry, have created new possibilities, and manufacturers and vendors are offering various multi-factor solutions in the domain of biometrics, physical tokens, software tokens and mobile codes.
Yet, multi-factor authentication has its own set of challenges. For one thing, requiring users to respond to multi-factor authentication processes too often will make for a bothersome experience, and often leads to their total disablement by frustrated users. Moreover, many basic multi-factor authentication tokens can be circumvented by malicious users, which effectively renders them useless against hacks.
