Consumers not always keen on high-assurance security technologies - Gartner

The company’s recent “Magic Quadrant for User Authentication” report reveals that bring-your-own-device (BYOD) demands are forcing vendors to change their products and services in response. Users want sign in processes to be as easy as using any other app on consumer phones.

According to author Ant Allan, there is a need for an authentication methodology that provides the right level of trust and doesn’t reduce the user experience. The number of people who need a secure way to sign in has exploded. Vendors, in response, are making it easier not just to “know,” but to “have” and, even “be” something that can be used for authentication.

The same paper mentions that instead of sticking with the traditional plastic token that generates passwords on the fly, companies such RSA and Symantec have responded with soft tokens that reside on smart phones or almost any digital device – computers, laptops and tablets included. The switch brings several benefits. For one, they are much cheaper. For another, they are familiar and easy to use.

Furthermore, contextual factors such as location especially will increase in importance in the next few years. Location is popular because virtually every smartphone includes sensors to pick it up. More important is what the location says about a user. While home and office may be widely known, seldom could an individual’s life schedule be predicted well enough to reliably spoof an identity. Thus, restrictions based on location can withstand attacks over the long term.

Biometrics such as face, iris and fingerprint are well known, but behaviour-based biometrics is emerging, too. Almost any physical motion related to device use can be tracked, from the way we type on our phones, tablets and keyboards to the way we go from one screen to the next. Users can invent their own gestures for shaking devices, if they like. Once identified, these behaviours can then be used for future authentication.