We are in the digital age where we increasingly put and spend more of our lives online. While it has brought many positives into the way we do things, it is not without some downsides. The migration to the digital realm has made us vulnerable to malicious attacks. This threat is especially imposing for financial institutions and platforms which store shared secrets or Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of their customers. Cybercriminals deploy various attack vectors to gain escalated privileges which allow them to steal sensitive information.
In order to prevent unauthorized access to a secure service, user identities are verified through a process called authentication. Authentication is a critical component of an effective security standard. There are single-factor authentication and multifactor authentication methods. Single-factor authentication methods are easily exploited by hackers, which calls for a stronger authentication method. The two-factor authentication (2FA) provides better security than the single step but it is not fail-safe. Malware, pharming, phishing, and fraud attacks have defied these security protocols, thereby stronger authentication methods are needed.
Why Organizations Need a Stronger Authentication Framework
a. Companies increasingly depend on digital data and files so also have data breaches soared in the last decade, with identity theft being the most prevalent. According to a recent report, the global cost of cybercrime increased to unprecedented levels in 2017, exceeding $600 billion. This scourge has become a huge drain in the revenue of organizations across the globe, especially companies in the global financial services sector.
b. Security threats of today have evolved beyond the capacity of simple user credentials (user IDs and passwords) and traditional two-factor authentication solutions such as OTP (one-time-passcode) tokens, especially for man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. A significant part of these security breaches is attributed to the reliance of organizations on static passwords. Therefore, it is in the best interests of financial institutions to adopt solutions which enable them to adjust their security controls to keep up with the dynamic and evolving security threats
c. In the European Union (EU), the introduction of Open Banking and implementation of the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) is the newest challenge faced by financial institutions. The PSD2 requires financial institutions to enable access to banking data but this comes with the additional burden of securing user data and financial services against unauthorized access. This means adopting and delivering stronger authentication methods without diminishing user experience.
From the abovementioned, it is evident that the stakes are high for both users and corporate entities when it comes to the security of financial transactions online. So adopting a stronger security control is no longer an option but a necessity.
The Hydro Raindrop Solution
Hydrogen is a platform aimed at revolutionizing the fintech industry by providing a suite of cutting-edge technologies for allowing developers to build sophisticated fintech applications from a single API platform. By leveraging on the efficacy of blockchain, Hydro allows private systems to seamlessly integrate and harness the power of a public blockchain to improve security at all levels of transactions.
The Hydro Raindrop is the first release of Hydrogen; it addresses a critical aspect of information security for financial institutions – authentication. Raindrop-based authentication is a 2-factor authentication predicated on blockchain transactions. It aims to provide stronger authentication layer to protect the user (client-side) and institutions (system-side). Raindrop has several competitive advantages when compared to existing third-party 2FA apps. Concisely, it solves the problems of poor security, recovery, and centralization common to existing authentication applications.
As a blockchain-based app, Hydro Raindrop is decentralized. Transactions are collectively confirmed by chains of distributed servers or node. It would take an attacker a lot of computing resources to successfully control and compromise the network. So decentralization makes it economically unviable or infeasible for an attacker to steal user data. Unlike existing authenticators which lack encrypted recovery support, Hydro Raindrop can be easily recovered in case you lose your mobile device. The app has a seed regeneration feature which enables users to regain access to their authenticator when they provide the seed phrase only known to them.
The transparency and immutability features of the blockchain ensure that an unalterable trail is left behind anytime an authorized party attempts to access a backend system. API attacks can now be foiled with urgency as any authorization attempt can be discovered in real time from any location across the globe. Hydro has been able to enhance multi-factor authentication framework because for a malicious attack to be successful, the attacker must steal both the system credentials and the Accessor’s private wallet keys. Financial institutions, social media platforms, gaming platforms, and fintech applications can integrate Hydro Raindrop for stronger authentication on their platforms.
For more information about Hydro 2FA App you can follow the links bellow
Social Media:
Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/projecthydro
Blog: https://medium.com/hydrogen-api
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@hydrogenapi
Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/H3uDdQ9JBFyV1UL35xX4VQ
Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/gxAUagw
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChDPAVs_qKREy9zAQsc6VVw
BitcoinTalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2778123.0
Other important Links:
Website: https://hydrogenplatform.com/hydro
