ARLINGTON, Va. and ISSAQUAH, Wash. — NAFCU Services Corp. has signed BioPassword as a Preferred Partner for multifactor authentication, required for high-risk financial transactions as of year-end 2006.
BioPassword touts itself as the only software company providing secure authentication and anti-fraud solutions based on the behavioral biometric of keystroke dynamics. The idea behind the modern technology is actually based on something a bit primitive, BioPassword Chief Technology Officer Greg Wood explained: telegraphers' ability to recognize each other based on the rhythm of their Morse Code.
"The competitive advantage is it's highly accurate…comparable to a fingerprint and it doesn't require any additional hardware," he said. Basically, the software just plugs into clients' existing authentications such as user ID and password. The end user types these in six to nine times to create a biometric template and you are up and running with no further changes for credit union members to deal with, but joint accountholders will need to distinguish themselves with different user IDs and passwords. The process takes under two minutes, according to Wood. The program is also platform and operating system independent.
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NAFCU Services Corp. President David Frankil explained that he is very familiar with information security from previous job experiences and was impressed by BioPassword's solution after checking out a number of different options for Preferred Partners in the area. Typical biometric, like thumbprints or retinal scans, he explained, requires hardware that can get lost and is expensive; other providers require a challenge question or other things to verify the end user that can make it more difficult for the credit union members. "What's really elegant about this solution is that it's the best of both worlds," Frankil said.
The technology has a 2-8% crossover error–giving false rejects or false acceptances. One credit union in doing its due diligence ran a couple thousand false attempts, Wood said, with no false accepts. BioPassword protects over 400,000 end users' personal information through a few dozen clients, including about a dozen credit unions like $150 million Parda FCU, $280 million San Antonio City Employee's FCU, $62 million Automotive FCU and $985 million FORUM CU.
Steve Schipull, chief financial officer at San Antonio City Employees FCU, described his credit union as being fairly tech savvy. He explained, "We've used biometrics with our membership now for about six years." The credit union offers a self-serve safe deposit box based on hand geometry.
While San Antonio City Employees is not using BioPassword for multifactor authentication because its core processor already had someone on board, all the credit union's laptops are equipped with BioPassword's solution. Employees at the credit union were constantly forgetting their passwords to access different things. Now, even if someone tapes their password to the bottom of their laptop, if the keystroke cadence does not match, the user cannot get in and calls to the IS help desk were reduced tremendously. Schipull said it was very easy to implement and just took the software and some instruction over the phone. He added, "It's probably very affordable for a lot of institutions." "The saying in security is the more convenient, the less secure it is," Schipull remarked, but BioPassword's solution contradicts that.
Credit unions have felt increasing pressure to implement multi-factor authentication protections by the end of 2006 due to large recent and public data security breaches and subsequent regulations and vendor back-ups have led some credit unions and other financial institutions to wonder what will happen to them if they miss the deadline. President George W. Bush signed an Executive Order establishing a task force to strengthen federal efforts protecting against identity theft. Additionally, the FFIEC set forth guidelines requiring financial services organizations to implement multifactor authentication by year-end 2006. NCUA also issued a related letter to all federally insured credit unions on "Authentication for Internet Based Services." –[email protected]
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