Risk-based authentication (RBA), also called adaptive authentication, has come of age, and it couldn’t happen fast enough for many corporate security managers. As phishing and account takeovers have blossomed under the pandemic, RBA can become a key technology to protect corporate assets, particularly as remote work is more the rule than the exception.
What is risk-based authentication?
RBA is all about examining “signals,” as the vendors refer to the various observations they make in near-real time as a user moves through the login process or when a customer buys something online. It creates a risk profile of the person or device requesting access to the system. That profile is based on factors or signals including IP geolocation, user behavior, keystroke patterns, and connection type. These factors may change depending on specific threat factors, and this could require ongoing management of risk profiles.