Risk & Reward

Premier U.S. financial institution first to deploy risk-based authentication

As the advantages of risk-based consumer authentication become more and more recognized, one top-10 U.S. financial institution took a pioneering step as one of the first organizations to customize and deploy strong authentication coupled with fraud detection in a single, cohesive solution. This implementation demonstrates the successful integration between strong authentication and proven fraud detection techniques to address online risk. This allows the bank to apply the right level of security based on the risk of a given transaction — a key capability provided by a risk-based authentication solution.

Today, financial institutions are faced with multiple external factors that force them to rethink security strategies. Protecting the corporate brand, safeguarding customers and meeting the appropriate regulations are now primary security concerns. This organization understood the magnitude of the threats in the online channel and took proactive steps to help protect their business and comply with regulations.

During this deployment, Entrust IdentityGuard (strong authentication) and Entrust TransactionGuard (fraud detection) were paired through the customer's applications, leveraging Entrust Professional services and internal resources. The deployment delivers centralized security services to all online banking applications, including enrollment and management, as well as a range of strong authentication capabilities.

Already in production with Entrust TransactionGuard for more than a year, in January 2008 the bank's pilot program for the addition of strong authentication was launched, involving a test group of 200 employees. In April the bank will extend the authentication service to more than 60,000 employees.

>> Discover how Entrust's risk-based consumer authentication solution helps stop online fraud in real-time.

Once formally tested and approved, the service will be offered to external customers in May. The first wave will consist of 100,000 users and will then be expanded every two to three months, with an ultimate goal of more than 5 million users enrolled by the close of 2008.

Even more impressive than the scale of the rollout is the performance of the solution. Because of the complex nature on the integration, the institution expected a minor performance hit to their online-banking application — an estimated one-second delay per transaction. However, during rigorous third-party testing of the solution, the results far exceeded their expectations with only a 1/4-second impact to the application.

Analysis also featured the use of load performance-testing where several APIs were selected and bombarded with requests in an attempt to "crash" the application with an unmanageable number of requests — something that did not happen.

One of the most effective ways of stimulating e-commerce and meeting industry regulations, risk-based authentication couples a versatile authentication platform with an online fraud detection solution. This institution serves as an excellent example of how risk-based consumer authentication can be leveraged to solve real-world security challenges — regardless of vertical or scope.