George Waller, evp and co-founder of Strikeforce Technologies, has been selling identity security technology to firms for a number of years, enough time to know that proving you are who say you are in today's climate is much harder than it used to be, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. And in the process, banks and their customers are going to have to get smarter about answering questions, and consumers are going to have to sharpen their memories about their own life's history.
Authentication and ID verification hurdles are increasing rapidly, as firms move to grow beyond traditional-and easily stolen-identity checks such as mothers' maiden names and Social Security numbers as a means of verifying customers. Lots more questions are being asked before customers can transact with their banks, and the queries are getting detailed, with "who did you sell your house to 20 years ago?" and "what was the make and model of your first car" being among the new sort of detail that's being used as a means of customer vetting. Sources say the moves are in response to an industrywide concern that older methods of ID checks were not only easily hacked, but actually played into the hands of crooks.
"Using static information that doesn't change as a means of authentication is dangerous," Waller says.
And as the questions get more complex, so does the use of the channels themselves-one new application on the market combines Internet and phone to trigger an automatic phone call to verbally verify the ID that was keyed into a Web log in. "It's like taking two different cars to arrive at the same place," Waller says. "The crooks can't get at you in both cars."
Waller says that, in many cases, banks are using as many as 10 questions to verify customers. Often, a question answered incorrectly can lead to follow-up questions. "Pulling in and pulling out questions, and putting in stuff that crooks can't get their hands on can be a powerful tool," Waller says.
ATMs at the Dome for Evacuees
Cardtronics and Ventus, a global telecommunications company, are teaming to install ATMs in and around the Houston Astrodome to provide surcharge-free access to victims of Hurricane Katrina. A number of victims were relocated to the Astrodome after spending a harrowing week at the New Orleans Superdome.
Cardtronics is providing the ATMs, while Ventus is providing the wireless communications and equipment for the ATMs free of charge. Plans for ATM access at other evacuation centers have yet to be finalized. In addition to the deployment at the Astrodome, Cardtronics has also begun a project with banks and retailers across the Gulf Coast to bring ATMs back on-line.
