SecureData, a member of the JSE-listed ERP.com Group and the distributor for RSA Security products in Sub-Saharan Africa, today announced the latter's RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone.
The product is designed to meet the financial industry's need for strong, automated and convenient caller authentication for telephone banking, given the nature of fraud migration and the regulatory requirements stated in the FFIEC's Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment guidance.
Designed with a focus on the end-user experience and strengthening phone authentication processes, RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone leverages the core concept and expertise used in RSA Adaptive Authentication for Web, currently used by more than 35 of the top 100 US financial institutions and some of the largest banks in Europe.
The new solution also incorporates RSA's voice biometric solution, based on the previously-acquired Vocent technology and integrated with the market-leading voiceprint engine from Nuance; the Vocent-Nuance solution is in production at several large banks in the United States today, with consumer-facing deployments planned for Q1 2007.
RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone provides multi-factor authentication for retail and commercial banking. The product is built to analyse various phone channel-specific risk parameters, from the phone number itself to a biometric voiceprint and user behaviour profiles.
The system is designed to then generate a comprehensive risk and authentication score for every call received and every high-risk transaction conducted. Low-risk transactions proceed uninterrupted while transactions with a high-risk score are verified with an additional layer of security, such as secret questions.
RSA's field-tested approach of risk-based authentication is engineered to allow the vast majority of transactions to be successfully completed without interruption - providing enhanced security with minimal impact on the user experience.
RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone will leverage the company's in-depth expertise in risk-based authentication and fraud analytics. This will enable RSA to offer cross-channel protection by cross-referencing each phone-based transaction with the existing Web behaviour profile for the individual involved - and leverage cross-institution fraud data via the RSA eFraudNetwork community.
"As we are strengthening security for the Web channel, phone banking is effectively becoming the next big target. Current phone authentication techniques are typically conducted semi-manually -- they are susceptible to social engineering and are not secure enough, as acknowledged recently by the FFIEC," commented Christopher Young, vice-president and general manager, Consumer Solutions at RSA, The Security Division of EMC.
"The technology behind voice biometrics is improving rapidly, but our research shows that more is required to accurately and transparently authenticate millions of consumers. With that in mind, we have combined our proven risk-based authentication capabilities with voice biometrics to deliver a high quality, user friendly, secure solution. Our end-goal is to provide financial institutions with cross-channel protection to secure their customers' remote financial transactions, regardless of the medium they choose to use."
Financial institutions that deploy RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone will be able to join the RSA eFraudNetwork community, the world's most effective anti-fraud network that helps protect hundreds of global financial institutions in real-time.
The eFraudNetwork community combines fraud data and positive fraudster profiles across RSA's various solutions covering multiple lines of business at financial institutions of all sizes around the world. This cross-application, cross-institution and now cross-channel repository is an extremely effective counter-measure against financial fraud.
RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone is based on RSA's voice biometric solution and leverages the market-leading voiceprint engine from Nuance. "RSA's experience and expertise as a global security vendor along with Nuance's technology leadership in speech processing combine to create an effective and credible solution for automated authentication for the phone channel," added Lynda Kate Smith, general manager, Care Business Unit, Nuance. "We are excited about leading this emerging market with RSA as an expert partner."
For further information, please contact Andrew Ochse at telephone +27 11 790 2500; fax +27 11 790 2599; e-mail andrewo@securedata.co.za.
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RSA, the security division of EMC, is the expert in information-centric security, enabling the protection of information throughout its lifecycle. RSA enables customers to cost-effectively secure critical information assets and online identities wherever they live and at every step of the way, and manage security information and events to ease the burden of compliance.
RSA offers industry-leading solutions in identity assurance and access management, encryption, security information management and anti-fraud protection, bringing trust to millions of user identities, the transactions that they perform, and the data that is generated.
SecureData
SecureData, an ERP.com company, is Africa's premier value-added distributor and solution provider of perimeter, network and endpoint information security and risk management solutions. As well as being the sole distributor in Sub-Saharan Africa for Trend Micro, SecureData is the Sub-Saharan African distributor for AirDefense, Application Security, Cibecs, eEye, Network Engines, Precise Biometrics, Rocket Software, RSA Security, St Bernard Software, TippingPoint Technologies and Websense. For more information, visit SecureData at www.securedata.co.za.
ERP.com
ERP.com is a JSE-listed company focused on the implementation, integration and management of enterprise applications in an e-business environment. For more information, visit ERP.com at www.erpcom.co.za.
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