Tag Archive for: identity

Are You Prioritizing Digital Identity Management?

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The rapid shift to remote working has created newfound challenges for organizations when it comes to digitizing their operations. One major hurdle is managing employees’ digital identities. So much so, that the vast majority of organizations (84%) report experiencing some form of identity-related breach within the past 12 months, which is undoubtedly a huge security risk.

A recent study found that nearly all organizations have seen an exponential increase in the number of identities they have to manage. This is because more applications and workloads are being moved to the cloud, while organizations are typically also working with more third-party software providers than ever.

Organizations must understand that they have a responsibility to protect their employees’ digital identities. Without a well-developed digital identity security strategy, they can face huge risks, such as operational disruption, negative publicity, and costly regulatory fines.

In this article we will examine some of the measures organizations can put in place to ensure the security of their digital infrastructure and regain control over employees’ digital identities.

Zero Trust Architecture – The ‘Be All and End All’ Solution? 

Security strategies have to evolve with the times. With the hybrid working boom, it’s no longer enough for organizations to just protect the perimeter of their networks. Employees are now often logging in from multiple locations and on different devices; all they need is a reliable internet connection. Organizations have to take this into account – and understand that traditional measures are no longer fit for purpose.

The evolving business landscape has created new challenges for enterprise network security. Zero trust architecture (ZTA) is becoming an increasingly popular approach, as it provides a higher level of security than a perimeter-centric model. ZTA assumes that all devices and users are potentially malicious and requires that they be authenticated as they move laterally within a network, making it more difficult for attackers to breach the system.

The effective management of users’ digital identities is the cornerstone of ZTA. Its…

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Decentralized Identity – Know Your Customer (Kyc)

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It is a well-established fact that credential theft is the most common attack vector cybercriminals use to defraud consumers. In fact, globally financial institutions spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on anti-money laundering compliance and technology solutions that help protect and authenticate consumer identity (I.e., identity proofing, biometrics, and multi-factor authentication to name a few).

Creating and implementing effective customer identity verification processes is essential to reducing the risk of fraudulent transactions and ensuring regulatory compliance.

One such approach is to share information among banks and governments through a multi-step model called Know Your Customer (KYC) – which may involve a central database maintained by a consortium of banks like Swift whereby consumer data is used to verify their identity and identify any potential risks of doing business with them. self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a new decentralized identity model that can help banks to solve the existing challenges of sharing KYC information securely and cost-effectively.

With decentralized KYC, the customer can be issued a KYC verifiable credential that can be cryptographically verified and stored on the customer’s mobile wallet. Verifiable credentials are trustworthy, tamper-proof, and machine-verifiable digital identity documents. The verifiable credentials can be issued by KYC providers and verified by other service providers for authenticity and ownership. The customer may proactively trigger issuance of such credentials or as part of an existing KYC process. KYC verifiable credentials provide a strong benefit to all involved – a seamless customer experience, as well as a simplified and more cost-effective processes for banks and service providers.

A lot of progress has been made in recent years in the field of self-sovereign identity:

  • Ratification of standards like W3C VC, and DID
  • European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) framework matured with POCs and pilot projects under way
  • eIDAS 2.0 close to being released
  • British Columbia Government launches VON (Verifiable Organizations Network)
  • Increased number of SSI networks all around the world

eIDAS 2.0…

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Africa: Why Digital Identity Verification is on the rise

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In Africa, there are a plethora of banking prospects. The area is a “sleeping giant” when it comes to having access to conventional bank accounts, online banking, and reasonably priced financial services. Identity Verification APIs are now providing resolutions to the finance sector with their old customer onboarding woes in Africa.

The World Bank estimates that 57% of Africans still don’t have a bank account of any type, including a mobile money account. According to a recent analysis by BPC and Fincog, this amounts to around 360 million adults in the area and 17% of the world’s unbanked population lacking access to formal financial services.

Many Africans lack official identification cards, making it difficult for people to access banking, education, and healthcare services. This can make it difficult for governments and companies to confirm the identities of their residents and clients.

Only 15 African countries have finished their national cybersecurity strategies for threat monitoring and response, according to a study from the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, according to South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), which notes that most of Africa’s banking regulations for digital services are slow to evolve.

Aggressive digital expansion in the Finance Sector

The competitive tech landscape that has contributed to a leapfrogging effect by avoiding conventional channels like landlines and going straight to mobile phones has contributed to the growth of Africa’s technology industry. Over time, this development has made the area an essential market for corporate growth and has sped up the adoption of eBanking and mobile money payment systems.

The high rates of fraud and cyber risks, as well as the dearth of cutting-edge identity verification methods to effectively combat fraudsters, are important obstacles restricting potential in the region.

How Identity Verification helps delivering Financial Services across the continent

Identity verification solutions can help with this problem, bringing huge companies to the area who have been put off by the region’s high levels of fraud and inability to adequately authenticate their clients.

identity-verification-api-cta

Due to the…

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