Looking Forward to Face ID
November 6, 2017
The Times of Israel — Passwords may be going the way of the floppy disk, and our faces may be the next key to our data security, according to a recent survey conducted by Secret Double Octopus (SDO), a cyber security startup that was founded on BGU research.
Focusing on the future of phone and device security, the survey shows a wide degree of optimism for face-recognition technology. Face ID, as it is called, is a major new feature of the set-to-launch iPhone X, and is being primed to replace fingerprint and password access technology in the near future.
The online survey asked 522 employees, ages 25 to 64, working at businesses with at least 1,000 employees in the U.S. to tell them what they really thought about the various authentication methods available.
Some 81 percent of respondents said Face ID was “trustworthy” — with 70 percent going as far as to say it was “extremely or very trustworthy” — and 91 percent “think it will be easy to use.”
More than 70 percent said they would choose Face ID over passwords if they had a choice, with 70 percent categorizing Face ID as “extremely or very trustworthy” — even if they had never used this technology or tried it out.
Founded in 2015 and based in Beer-Sheva, Secret Double Octopus developed the world’s only password-free, keyless authentication technology “to protect identity and data across cloud, mobile and IoT (internet of things) environments.”
Prof. Shlomi Dolev
The startup deploys the same kind of authentication methods used to guarantee the safety of nuclear launch codes. With nuclear weapons, typically, different people have just a piece of the full launch codes, and before a launch all of these pieces must fit correctly together. SDO’s technology essentially reproduces the same authentication mechanism.
Prof. Shlomi Dolev, the Rita Altura Trust Chair in Computer Sciences at BGU, is SDO’s co-founder and chief scientific officer, and Dr. Shimrit Tzur-David, SDO’s chief technology officer, worked with Prof. Dolev as a postdoctoral researcher when the company was founded.
Secret Double Octopus published the survey as part of a broader report on data security and authentication methods called Facing a Future Without Passwords.
“We initiated this survey because we wanted to look past the hype to really understand what people think about the authentication methods they are required to navigate daily — anything from passwords, tokens and SMS to touch ID,” says Raz Rafaeli, SDO’s co-founder and chief executive officer.
“We also wanted to know what people are expecting from new authentication alternatives, specifically Face ID,” Rafaeli adds.
Read more on The Times of Israel website >>
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