From everyone at BIO-key, we’d like to say thank you for your continued trust and support. We hope you enjoy spending time with your family and friends this holiday season, and wish you all the best in 2023.
As the last blog post of the year, we want to reflect on what has been a remarkable 2022 for BIO-key and give you a brief outlook on the cybersecurity trends for 2023, and BIO-key's upcoming product roadmap.
Moving Together into the Future
2022 has been a very exciting year for BIO-key as we continue to expand our footprint around the globe. In March, we acquired Swivel Secure Europe, which has provided us with sales, marketing, and technology resources in the EMEA region. We now have offices in Madrid and Lisbon, and a support center that operates 365 days a year and 24 hours a day to provide support for our customers as we expand on a global basis. We also opened our first office in the Middle East in Dubai, and we are resourcing that office right now.
About two years ago, we began deploying our solutions in the cloud, and we are pleased to say that in 2022, we saw many customers successfully transitioning to our IDaaS (Identity-as-a-Service) solutions to relieve themselves of the responsibility to manage all the infrastructure that is required to support their security needs. To keep up the momentum, we are expanding our support and onboarding teams to be able to transition our customers to cloud deployments if they choose to do so.
Most importantly, BIO-key will continue to innovate and develop new offerings to meet evolving enterprise security needs. This year, we released major updates to the BIO-key MobileAuth mobile app, a one-of-a-kind multi-factor authentication app that brings the power of Identity-Bound Biometrics (IBB) to any mobile device, available on both Android and Apple iOS. The MobileAuth app currently supports facial recognition, palm scanning, and voice recognition, as well as push tokens and local biometrics (i.e. Apple Face ID and Touch ID and Android Biometrics). Given BIO-key's long history in biometric authentication, we believe our IBB solutions will continue to evolve and take hold in the next year.
Trending into the New Year
At BIO-key, the main driver for our product roadmap and business decisions is the major trends we are seeing in the market and in cybersecurity.
Zero Trust
Apart from the mandate for all US federal entities to implement Zero Trust, we are seeing customers from other sectors implement Zero Trust frameworks and best practices.
According to Gartner, Zero Trust Network Access will remain the fastest-growing segment in network security, driven by the increased demand for Zero Trust protection for remote workers and organizations’ reducing dependence on VPNs for secure access.
As a BIO-key customer, you have access to solutions and features to support your Zero Trust journey, including continuous and adaptive authentication that is available via the PortalGuard platform.
Multi-Factor Authentication for all users requires greater flexibility
Most cyber insurance companies now require customers to have a complete roll-out of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for all users – and this is introducing new use cases and specific requirements. As a BIO-key customer, you have access to a wide range of flexible MFA methods, enabling you to provide the proper level of security for specific users or groups of users, meet your security goals, and deliver an optimized user experience.
At the same time, threat actors are targeting more traditional authentication methods, especially hardware tokens and phone-based methods because of their apparent weakness of only verifying the device and not the actual user. Strong cybersecurity hinges on trust, and establishing trust should be centered around the person. We are now seeing many customers leaning towards MFA with IBB to establish trust with the person on the other side of the screen, as IBB offers the highest level of security and cannot be forgotten, shared, exchanged, stolen, or forged.
If you want to explore using IBB in your environment, contact Alex Apostolov for a consulting call.
Passwordless is all the rage
We did an overview of passwordless authentication recently, so be sure to check out our passwordless webinar and passwordless blog if you are interested.
BIO-key offers passwordless solutions and our customers have access to them via PortalGuard.
Desktop Login: PortalGuard Desktop and WEB-key
- Simple fingerprint scan – no phones or tokens required
- 1-to-many matching removes the need for a username and password
- True single sign-on in browser avoids additional password prompts from federated apps
Web App Login: PortalGuard
- All supported authentication methods can be used without a password, including Identity-Bound Biometrics and hardware tokens
- FIDO2/WebAuthN supported
- Check out BIO-key's own line of FIDO security keys and fingerprint scanners
One customer we love to highlight for passwordless is The Orange Bank and Trust Company:
- Opted for Identity-Bound Biometrics as part of their passwordless authentication strategy to secure access to shared workstations across 11 branches
- Successfully implemented IBB in 45 days and deployed a fingerprint scanner on < 2000 desktops, offering passwordless authentication for all employees
- Employees only have to scan their fingers to log in to any device and workstation
Product Innovations
We are always busy innovating to help our customers improve their IAM processes. A lot of product features and enhancements are based on your feedback and requests, and we also offer tailored authentication to customize solutions to your unique needs. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to the BIO-key team if you want to learn more or have a specific requirement to address.
Here's a quick look back at some of our innovations from 2022:
- IDaaS Admin Panel
- MobileAuth app
- SMS Throttling
- RADIUS support for IDaaS
- Vanity URLs
- Tighter integration with 3rd party providers (DUO)
Here’s what to expect from BIO-key in 2023:
- Authentication engine redesign – factor sequencing
- PortalGuard Desktop for MAC
- Single Sign-On App Catalog
- UI Templating
Connecting with BIO-key
Where to find the latest from BIO-key?
- Customer blog (you are reading it now 🙂)
- Product roadmap/release webinars
- LinkedIn Group (BIO-key customers only)
Who to contact?
- accounts@BIO-key.com
- BIO-key Support Portal
- Your Customer Success Manager: Alex Apostolov
Schedule a CSM Call to Review Your 2023 Strategy
Feel free to reach out to Alex Apostolov to schedule a CSM call if you have any questions or want to discuss how you can leverage your BIO-key investment to its fullest.
