Future of Biometrics in Identity and Access Management.

Identity and Access Management is now in a new era of authentication; moving beyond passwords which is already quite common on many devices. In fact password-less authentication is a verification process that determines whether someone is who they say they are without the need for the person to enter his/her credentials manually.

Why Go Password-less In The First Place?

Passwords and credential theft are a huge concern on cybersecurity and fraud is an issue for both consumers and employers alike. Apparently any alternative to passwords will be met with suspicion and will take some time for the consumers to adopt to a new technology. But integrating a password-less solution should be simpler and faster where it can reduce the risk of phishing and password spray and replay attacks by switching to a password-less authentication.

Unlike passwords or token-based authentication, Biometric authentication uses biological characteristics unique to an individual to verify the identity. It’s harder to spoof and more convenient for users since they don’t have to remember passwords or carry a physical token that can easily be lost or stolen where the authenticator is part of the individual.

The biometrics market is constantly evolving. The market is dominated by 4 technologies: fingerprint, face, iris and voice recognition. By 2019, an upward trend for the usage of biometric authentication is prominent. Moreover, a study conducted by ‘Spiceworks’ shows that 62% of organizations currently use biometric technology for authentication. And, the same study also predicts that there will be nearly 90% of businesses using it by the year 2020.

Yet there are several concerns of improvements in using biometrics for authentication. Hackers are finding new ways to subvert biometrics. For example a team of researchers has recently developed a fingerprint template using machine learning algorithms, which could trick an iPhone into unlocking.Continuous authentication using biometrics like fingerprint will continue to gain traction.Much of this relates to continuous authentication, which calculates an ‘authentication score’ on a rolling basis that reflects the likelihood of a user being exactly who they say they are. In these cases, the score takes into account how a user behaves in the app and any personal details they entered. Hence regulators are tightening rules around the collection of biometric data.

However, a survey conducted by Visa found that 86% of consumers actually want to use biometrics to verify their identity, as opposed to traditional passwords.

Voice recognition and Iris scanning, the future of Biometrics…

Voice recognition (also called speaker recognition or voice authentication) analyses a person’s voice to verify their identity. Airways and soft-tissue cavities, as well as the shape and movement of the mouth and jaw, influence voice patterns to create a unique “Voice-print”. A high-performance tool that can be applied in any industry, this biometric solution simplifies procedures and makes the user’s life easier: just talk to sign in!

In terms of user experience, a more convenient biometric authentication technology for desktops is the Iris scanning which is supported by Microsoft and it has a few benefits over the alternatives. Since it should be more reliable and convenient than fingerprint scanning, Microsoft will be launching a combination of special hardware and software without letting to be handled by our webcams or phone cameras to make sure the system can’t be beaten.

Provided that fingerprint and face recognition are already prominent as authentication technologies in identity and access management, voice recognition and iris scanning is going to be super cool implementations in biometrics in the near future. Isn’t it so fascinating that in order to simply authenticate yourself, you just need to stare at the webcam or just talk!

Hence its obvious that biometrics are already changing the game, and they will continue to do so.

Originally published at https://medium.com on September 9, 2019.