By Jack Callahan, CTO, Veridium
1. New threats are on the horizon.
Starting with the obvious, the great migration is under way. As Milos Kuchar, Senior Engineer with Veridium notes: “The pressure to start to use cloud solutions is getting higher, only “on premise” company environments almost doesn’t exist anymore. Today´s IT means that security stack hybrid solutions are striving to cover both on-premise and cloud systems – two very different animals when it comes to establishing trusted identities and authenticating prior to access. This means that authentication security solutions have to follow new requirements.”
Also, the unfortunate wave of cloud misconfigurations allowing credentials threats will continue and worsen, and it’s well understood that ransomware attacks will increase in both frequency and sophistication, while continuing to target potential victims both large and small. Look for an uptick in password-based attacks exploiting systems that still rely on 1990s-era password protected systems.
2. The passwordless migration will gain momentum in 2022.
The number of passwords organizations must manage increase in tandem with the adoption of more and more SaaS solutions. Savvy organizations will seek to set appropriate levels of security and also provide better user experience, and embrace principles of Zero Trust through passwordless authentication.
Hyperconnected, customer-facing sectors such as retail will seek to do the same. Their motivations will differ, however, which will impact their migration. In retail, the migration will be the result of Know Your Customer (KYC) strategies to help eliminate the user friction that leads to abandonment of transactions and data exchanges, and to introduce greater protections against fraud and account takeover.
3. Zero Trust is coming, but cannot be achieved with static credentials.
Linda Romain, US Director, Veridium, notes “Authentication is at the foundation of Zero Trust.” We see Passwordless Multi Factor Authentication becoming a new pilar of Zero Trust, evolution. In addition to that, we’ll also see the increased use of AI and ML to thwart threats such as malicious insider activities. For example, look for wider use of AI and ML to spot suspicious activities such as malicious insider attempts at inappropriate access to data stores.
4. Physical and Behavioral biometrics will become …
We’re already seeing that biometrics are showing up in RFPs, studies and projects from organizations considering passwordless. Some even looking at retina biometrics and behavioral biometrics to enable highly trusted, advanced cross-platform authentication.
Across all business sectors, these multifactor authentication advances will be deployed to “protect fortress assets” such as servers and employee asset access against ransomware and even guard access to physical property in diverse industries from banking to manufacturing. These adoptions will accelerate.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John “Jack” Callahan, Ph.D., CTO, Veridium
Jack is responsible for the development of the company’s world class enterprise-ready biometric solutions, leading a global team of software developers, computer vision scientists and sales engineers.
He has previously served as the Associate Director for Information Dominance at the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research Global, London UK office, via an Intergovernmental Personnel Act assignment from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Jack completed his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park.
