Zero-Trust at the Pentagon: Identity News Digest

Welcome to FindBiometrics’ digest of identity industry news. Here’s what you need to know about the world of digital identity and biometrics today:

Executive Appointments

Pindrop, a specialist in voice biometrics-based security, has named Marc Diouane as its new Chief Operating Officer. In its announcement, the company emphasized his strong track record: prior to joining Pindrop, Diouane served as Chief Business Officer for Checkr, a provider of AI services for background checks, from June of 2019 to January of this year, helping to lead the company through a period of intense growth. Before that, he helped to steer Zuora through an IPO as the company’s President, a position he held from March of 2014 through 2019. The appointment comes after Pindrop named a new CFO last year.

Government Cybersecurity

Department of Defense CIO John Sherman says that the Pentagon aims to have zero-trust architecture in place across the majority of its enterprise systems by 2027. To that end, he has appointed a new Deputy Chief Information Security Officer, and DoD officials are working on a “cyber talent strategy” that is expected to be ready within the next two months. Sherman explained that “the adversary capability we’re facing leaves us no choice but to move at that level of pace,” according to a FedScoop report.

Refugee Biometrics

The UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, has been working with the government of Cameroon to issue biometric ID cards to about 6,000 refugees who fled to the country in the wake of civil conflict in the neighboring Central African Republic. The biometric IDs help refugees to access education and healthcare, to set up businesses, and to travel; “Having the ID card has really helped me,” one community organizer told Reuters. The UNHCR has been a vocal proponent of the benefits of using biometrics to issue reliable IDs to displaced people.

Hack Attacks

Twilio has disclosed that it has found additional victims of a phishing attack earlier this month, raising the body count from 125 customers to 163 customers. The phishing attack had downstream effects, having potentially exposed up to 1,900 accounts on Signal, a secure messaging app, and compromising 93 accounts with Authy, an authentication service. The phishing attack is notable for having used targeted messages sent via SMS, rather than email. In a blog post, Twilio said its management believe the threat actors to be “well-organized, sophisticated and methodical in their actions.”

2FA

Ahead of Apple’s launch of its new ‘Passkeys’ feature, the company is well-positioned to onboard its customers. The feature is designed to let Apple customers store passwords for their various online accounts on their devices, and to unlock them using a biometric scan. As such, Passkeys will require users to have Two-Factor Authentication enabled in order to use them. Fortunately, Apple has confirmed to 9to5Mac, more than 95 percent of active users of iCloud, Apple’s cloud-based data syncing service, already have 2FA enabled.

Ουάου!

Greece’s digital identity app is off to a running start. Since its launch about a month ago, over 700,000 citizens have downloaded it, and a little over half a million have used it to create a mobile version of their driver’s license, according to the country’s Digital Governance Ministry. The figures are particularly impressive given the phased rollout of the app, which started out by making it available only to Greeks whose tax identification number ended in “1”.

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August 29, 2022 – by Alex Perala