August 26, 2013 – by Peter B. Counter
It should come as no surprise that the password is no longer a strong enough deterrent to keep wanting hackers, snoopers and botnets out of private online spaces. Accounts providers like Google have been very vocal in the need for a stronger security measure motivating them to enforce multi-step authentication factors on registered users. Online accounts aren’t the only kind needing reinforced security, airports, banks and workplaces also drive the demand for multi-factor authentication.
A recent report by research firm Markets and Markets predicts that the combined market for two, three, four or five step authentication will reach $5.45 billion by 2017 at CAGR of 17.3 percent. According to the report the market is currently dominated by two-factor security measures, which by virtue of being the most simple are also the oldest (ATMs operate on two-factor card and PIN solutions). The addition of one time password (OTP) tokens, smart cards and biometric recognition factors can be added to increase the level of security by orders of magnitude. And they are.
Government, banking, finance, travel, immigration, border control and access control are all driving the market up. According to Markets and Markets, North America is at the front of the charge when it comes to driving this demand, followed closely by Europe and APAC. Taking a look at recent movements and posturings in mobile biometric security solutions, namely the popularity of fingerprint sensors on portable devices like Fujitsu’s biometric scanner sporting laptops and smartphones, this sort of forecast is positive but not unexpected.
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