MFA trends and recommendations for SMEs and Enterprises

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MFA trends and recommendations for 2020

2020 may be a year of MFA’s successive and stable expansion to other platforms. Both individual users and company employees will be able to protect their accounts with strong multi-factor authentication.

Individuals and companies for whom data security is critical will be reaching for cryptographic keys more often. There will be more and more companies offering security keys and authentication apps. In 2019 Google, has followed companies such as Yubico or Feitian and has launched its own security key called Google Titan. Journalists, influencers, politicians, high level managers — all of them will most likely be reaching for better protection based on multi-factor authentication and cryptography-based methods.

Other important factors that will increase the popularity of MFA methods are international directives such as the GDPR or PSD2. Both of them had a significant impact on the security awareness of companies and individual users. As a consequence, e-banking customers in EU are already using strong two-factor authentication (as it was one of the requirements of PSD2 directive).

It is also likely that more and more companies will be looking for ways to protect themselves against the consequences of breaking the GDPR and MFA seems like a natural option. It is especially likely in large e-commerce companies, financial services providers and other large and medium-sized companies, which due to the nature of their business makes them a great target for phishing risks and data frauds.

In 2020 the use of local authenticators, may become a particularly interesting trend. We are talking about smartphones with fingerprint sensors and laptops with face recognition, which thanks to the new online authentication standard called FIDO2 (or WebAuthn) can now serve as online authenticators confirming identity on the web.

The FIDO2 authentication standard is something completely new, sanctioned by the W3C consortium only in mid-2019 however the standard will most likely be gaining on popularity really fast. In the last months of 2019 FIDO2 was introduced by brands such as Google, Twitter, Apple or Microsoft and many others.

Recommendations for business

Companies that need to protect their applications with strong authentication should first look for suppliers who will not only enable to implement multi-factor authentication, but also help in scaling it to more applications or shifting from one MFA method to another.

A broker-based approach to authentication seems to be the most desirable. In such an approach, the system administrator is able to easily change the strong authentication method without interfering with the code of an app. System admin can also add MFA to the subsequent applications and subsequent users.

Companies that choose user access security broker based approach give themselves the opportunity to quickly and easily add and adjust a set of MFA methods to their own requirements. In this way, some applications can be protected with a less secure but more convenient authentication app (such as Google Authenticator), and the most critical resources will get protected by FIDO cryptographic keys (such as Yubikey).

What is important to stress out is that the multi-factor authentication broker does not bind the application to one specific MFA method and an authentication method can always be switched to a different one in a few clicks by the system administrator.

In summary, 2020 could be a year of expansion for MFA, as well as a paradigm shift in how the strong authentication method is delivered. Instead of integrating it with the application, it can work independently as a broker without touching the application code therefore avoiding vendor lock-ins and other common limitations.

Read more>>> Strong FIDO2 authentication in applications such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and many others can now be natively used on Apple phones.

Secfense The missing puzzle of FIDO2 has just arrived 1
The missing puzzle of FIDO2 has just arrived

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Testimonials

We are faced with new challenges every day. We must always be one step ahead of the attackers and know what they are going to do before they do it. We are convinced that the User Access Security Broker will bring security to a new level, both for those working at the office and from home. For us, working with Secfense is an opportunity to exchange experience with developers who put great value on out-of-the-box thinking.

Krzysztof Słotwiński

Business Continuity and Computer Security Officer

BNP Paribas Bank Poland

As part of the pre-implementation analysis, we verified that users utilize a wide range of client platforms: desktop computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and traditional mobile phones. Each of these devices differs in technological advancement, features, and level of security. Because of this, and also due to the recommendation of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (UKNF), we decided to introduce additional protection in the form of multi-factor authentication mechanisms based on FIDO. As a result, users of our applications can log in safely, avoiding common cyber threats such as phishing, account takeover, and theft of their own and their clients’ data.

Marcin Bobruk

CEO

Sandis

We are excited to partner with Secfense to enhance our user access security for our web apps. By integrating their User Access Security Broker, we ensure seamless and secure protection for our applications and systems, delivering superior security and convenience to our customers.

Charm Abeywardana

IT & Infrastructure

Visium Networks

Before investing in Secfense, we had the opportunity to talk to its existing clients. Their reactions were unanimous: wow, it’s so easy to use. We were particularly impressed by the fact that implementing their solution does not require the involvement of IT developers. It gives Secfense a huge advantage over the competition, and at the same time opens the door to potential customers who so far were afraid of changes related to the implementation of multi-factor authentication solutions.

Mateusz Bodio

Managing Director

RKKVC

Even when the network and infrastructure are secured enough, social engineering and passwords can be used to gain control of the system by attackers. Multifactor authentication is the current trend. Secfense addresses this and allows you to build zero trust security and upgrade your current systems to passwordless applications within minutes, solving this problem right away,” said Eduard Kučera, Partner at Presto Ventures and cybersecurity expert – former Director in hugely successful Czech multinational cyber security firm Avast.

Eduard Kučera

Partner

Presto Ventures

One of the biggest challenges the world is facing today is securing our identity online. That’s why we were so keen to have Secfense in our portfolio. They make it possible to introduce strong authentication in an automated way. Until now, organizations had to selectively protect applications because the deployment of new technology was very hard, or even impossible. With Secfense, the implementation of multi-factor authentication is no longer a problem, and all organizations can use the highest standards of authentication security.

Stanislav Ivanov

Founding Partner

Tera Ventures

Two-factor authentication is known to be one of the best ways to protect against phishing; however, its implementation has always been difficult. Secfense helped us solve that problem. With their security broker, we were able to introduce various 2FA methods on our web applications at once.

Dariusz Pitala

Head of IT

MPEC S.A.