This helps you avoid situations like letting hackers use a fake “Forgot password?” link on your website to get access to all your users’ accounts. In this blog post, we’ll go over what strong customer authentication is, why you should adopt it as soon as possible, and how you can implement it in your own app. Keep reading to learn everything you need to know to improve customer authentication!
Strong Customer Authentication for your platform
Strong customer authentication can include things like a two-factor authentication (using login tokens or codes), multi-factor authentication (using login tokens, passwords and biometrics), and login verification features (such as login prompts after a period of inactivity).
Why is Strong Customer Authentication Important?
Strong customer authentication is important because it is the only proven way to protect against account takeovers (ATOs). ATOs are the result of someone hacking or phishing a user’s credentials — usually their username and password — to gain access to an account. If someone is able to log into your account, they can do all sorts of bad things.
They can change your account settings, send out messages from your account, and even steal money from your customer’s bank accounts if your app is a financial service. Strong customer authentication can drastically reduce the likelihood that an attacker will be able to get into your system — especially if you use a multifactor approach. Simply using a password manager, like LastPass, isn’t enough to stop ATOs.
How to Implement Strong Customer Authentication
There are a few different ways you can implement strong customer authentication into your systems. You can use a password manager, like LastPass, that generates a unique code every 30 days and sends it to the user’s phone. You can require users to log in with biometrics, like a fingerprint scan, or use a physical security key to log in.
Password managers are the easiest and most common way to add strong authentication. If a user forgets their password, they just need to log into the password manager and generate a new code. There are a few things to keep in mind when implementing this approach, though.
First, make sure the code can’t be intercepted. Use an app like 1Password or LastPass that sends the code to the user’s phone. And don’t keep the code around forever. After 30 days, get rid of the code and generate a new one.How to Achieve Strong Customer Authentication
Strong customer authentication can be achieved in a number of ways. This will depend on the particular login process and what tools and logs are available, but there are some general principles that can help.
- Use multiple factors for authentication
If you only use a single log type for authentication, it’s easy for an attacker to fake that log type. However, if you use multiple log types, then it becomes much more difficult to fake all of them. - Use the right tools
Some logs will be available on every device and app, but others may not be. Make sure you have the right tools in place to authenticate users.
So What is Strong Customer Authentication?
Strong customer authentication is an important part of keeping your users safe online. Use the tips in this article to improve your authentication methods to better protect your customers and their sensitive data. In addition, never forget that it’s important to keep your customers in the loop about how their data is being protected. Regularly send out updates about initiatives to strengthen login security, and be honest about the steps you’re taking to keep them safe from cybercriminals.
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