What is Adaptive Authentication, and why does your business need it?

Yes, the year 2023 brings with it a whole new set of challenges in terms of cyber security. Especially considering the scale at which cyber attacks wreaked havoc in 2022, going from the individual and company level to engulfing whole countries.

Two cases in point from 2022: Russia’s cyber-attacks on Ukraine and rogue cybercrimers forcing the government of Costa Rica to declare a national emergency.

2023 Is just going to broaden the cyber threat landscape and companies need to be a step or three ahead in terms of cybersecurity practices. Just as you have Saas, cybercrime experts predict the rise of Ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) or Cybercrime-as-a-service (CaaS) this year.

And that’s where Adaptive Authentication (AA) comes in. A little different from the, let’s call it traditional (since it has been around for a while) standard authentication methods, such as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), AA asks users for specific credentials whenever they try to log in or access corporate resources. AA is different from MFA in the sense that while MFA asks for the same credentials every time such as a username, password, and a code generated, AA changes the security requirements, depending upon the situation, making it more difficult for a hacker to circumvent.

How AA works is that it creates a profile for each user, which includes information such as the user’s role, location, registered devices, and so on. Now, every time the user tries to log in and authenticate, the AA system evaluates the level of “risk” of the request and depending on it asks the user for fewer or additional credentials. For example, if you are trying to authenticate from outside the office, say from Colorado instead of Chennai, the user may have to an additional security question. If the system detects the risk score as higher, it may even ask for biometrics.

The use of artificial intelligence makes AA more advanced and dynamic and can detect threats in real-time. The most advanced AA solutions automatically adjust the authentication requirements based on the risk score and IT policies.

Another advantage of AA is that it is platform-independent. This means it can work on any device supporting a web browser. It dynamically learns typical behaviors of individual users to determine what range of behaviors, which allows security measures to adapt over time.

3 major benefits of AA

1. As AA adapts to the cybersecurity risk, recognised users will have fewer interruptions and more ease of access, resulting in a better end-user experience

2.AA offers greater cyber protection, especially in the wake of distributed workforces needing remote access to critical data

3.MFA tends to be time-consuming because one has to feed in the same information over and over. AA adjusts the level of security requirements according to profile and risk score, which means that in low-risk situations, authentication required is less, which at workplaces can improve productivity

Learn more about using adaptive authentication to strengthen your cybersecurity and protect your critical data with Blue Star E&E’s security solutions tailormade to your organisation’s unique requirements.