In today’s world, digitalization is all around us, penetrating every field and embedding itself into our ways of life. From online payments, access and rights management, to communications, digitalization has become the new norm. While digitalization is great news for consumers, it demands a lot from companies’ technical teams. In addition to ensuring the health of the servers and providing invaluable technical support to the rest of the organization, they now need to shift their thinking to strategic security. The security measures of yesteryear like firewalls, antivirus and encryption technology are no longer strong enough to block corporate attacks.
For tech developers and managers, this means categorizing business systems based on critical access to data and adding additional layers of protection to these systems. With tech, the complexity of networks means that any change could set of a multitude of adjustments and tweaks which could mean downtime. Tech developers and managers are pressured to find ways to implement top levels of security without affecting uptime, while simultaneously keeping costs low.
As more businesses are providing their services online and encouraging their users to transact and make payments online, the need for enhanced levels of security arises. Stolen or weak credentials are a hacker’s preferred weapon in web attacks Anti-viruses and firewalls are not enough to ward off hackers – user authentication is an essential layer Password theft methods are evolving and methods like pharming, phishing and keylogging are becoming more advanced Users are already exposed to, and utilizing, various factors such as ownership and biometric factors
The more users interact with, and transact with, businesses online, the more concerns around the security of their data arise. It is not enough to provide users a seamless user experience, it also needs to be highly secure for the end user, yet easy and cost-effective for the company to implement.
Sure, companies in the digital space may be confident that they follow high levels of password security and safety like hashing, salting, and other password recovery flow protection methods, but is that enough? How do they ensure all the security measures their developers and security teams have implemented can’t be bypassed? The answer is Multifactor Authentication.
What is Multifactor Authentication?
Multifactor authentication, as the name suggests, is a user verification method that requires users to provide two or more factors, or verification methods, to confirm their identity. Multifactor authentication gives tech developers and managers an easy, quick and cost-effective way to enhance security of critical business systems through tighter security controls, and identity protection to defend against phishing scams, making it extremely difficult for a data breach or exploitation of the login process to occur.
Multifactor authentication generally takes into account three main factors:
- Something you remember This will be the single factor authentication measure most companies already have in place, i.e. a username and password
- Something you own This will be something that each individual physically has on them, i.e. their personal laptop or mobile phone.
- Something you are This is something that is unique to each individual that cannot be replicated, i.e. their biometrics.
Implementing multifactor authentication would protect user data even if password hashes have been hacked, or passwords have been leaked or stolen. Multifactor authentication would require someone to, both, know the password, as well as scan their biometric data or enter a one-time password (OTP) received on a user’s owned device in order to access their account.
Implementation concerns
There are a couple of concerns around implementing multifactor authentication.
The first relates to the operational aspect around developing an OTP or TOTP generation tool. The risk and complexity involved in developing a secure enough SMS or email-based OTP or device-based TOTP generator leads companies to look at external service providers who offer this solution.
The second relates to user experience. Many solutions require users to download additional applications onto their devices, then jump between applications in order to generate an OTP or TOTP. While this does mean that the website or application is protected by multifactor authentication, the user experience takes a big hit, which could result in lost customers.
Another concern relates to scalability; as businesses grow, their user bases grow as well, which means more stress on the servers, a higher number of authentication requests, and even rule-based authentication policies.
With LoginID, you do not need to take on these concerns. With a simple API or SDK integration flow built for developers, you can set up a secure multifactor authenticator in just one hour.
Final Thoughts
Tech developers and managers are under a lot of pressure to manage their company’s demands and expectations, ensure the system and network health, and implement high levels of security to protect these systems. Cyber criminals are constantly evolving, coming up with new complex ways to hack into corporate systems. Multifactor authentication, like the solution provided by LoginID, gives developers and security teams the confidence that the platforms, systems, networks and users that they oversee are safeguarded against external attacks, even if their teams are working remotely from various locations, as many companies are. Even companies such as Microsoft and Google, who have reported a high number of fraudulent sign-in attempts on a daily basis, have circumvented these attempts by implementing multifactor authentication.
As more companies are taking their commerce streams online, their developers and security teams are under constant pressure to find the best security solutions out there. Solutions like LoginID aid seamless adoption of a high-end, easy to implement security system with built-in tools and best practice recommendations so companies can hit the ground running and rest easy knowing their systems are well-protected.
About LoginID
LoginID is a comprehensive FIDO-based multifactor authentication solution that offers frictionless authentication. Created with developers and enterprises in mind, LoginID is FIDO-certified and adheres to P2D2 principles. With an implementation time of just one hour, LoginID’s multifactor authentication solution is a quick, simple to integrate, cost-effective, and regulatorily compliant tool to give your business peace of mind around security, allowing you to focus on growing your business.
Get started for free by checking out the demo here. Learn more about LoginID’s solutions here.
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