Apple has rolled out a new version of the iPhone’s operating system, the iOS 16. The latest version offers better innovations in design, customization, accessibility, and security with passwordless authentication.

Customizable Lock Screen

The iOS16 now allows for more customizable lock screens. Users can now set up a different wallpaper for their lock screen and home screen. They can also customize the font and widgets they want to see on their lock screen.

Improved Focus Feature

Apple has improved the Focus feature by allowing users to manually select the apps that they want to receive notifications from when the Focus function is active. Users can also customize who will get alerted.

Smarter Siri

Functions that were tricky to accomplish with Siri in previous versions were now improved for easier use of the voice assistant. Siri can now answer and end calls with simple voice functions. Texting with Siri has also improved as it can now automatically add punctuation so users don’t need to dictate them. Users can also add emojis by saying “emoji” and the description of the emoji.

Smoother Dictation

Switching between speaking and typing is smoother with the iOS 16. The keyboard stays open while you speak so you can use it anytime. Users can touch a text you want to replace and replace it with speech.

Additional Features To Live Text

Live Text now has added features that makes extracting information from multimedia more convenient. The new update enables the Live Text feature to recognize and copy text in images and videos. The new Visual Look Up feature allows users to lift a subject in an image and type it in any app. Apart from those, the update includes translation capabilities, a 15-minute undo, and currency conversions.

Writing Improvements

iPhone’s native keyboard was also upgraded with haptic typing for smoother and more efficient writing experience. Haptic keyboard feedback can be turned on or off separately. iOS 16 also features unending and editing in iMessages. The quick notes feature, which was first introduced in iPad OS 15, is now available in iOS 16 as well.

Passwordless Authentication Log In With Passkeys

Passkeys is a digital cryptographic authentication feature that stores the user’s passwords for various apps, websites, and services so they don’t need to remember so many passwords. Passkeys are local to a specific device, which are done in the background for iOS 16. Passwordless authentication protects users from cybercrime while remaining convenient for the users, which is why it’s no surprise that use of passkeys grew in 2020.

If you’re interested in passwordless authentication system, read here to learn more.

Digital-only banks, by providing banking services through digital platforms, offer convenience. However, the majority of consumers remain reluctant to shift to digital-only banks due to concerns on data security. In light of these concerns and the continuous cybercrime attacks on financial institutions, digital banks have a duty to strengthen their cybersecurity capabilities through passwordless authentication.

Data Security Woes

The US Consumer Affairs reports that cybercrime instances have doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since digital banking and e-commerce have become more commonplace in the past few years, data security issues have also increased for end-users. Cybercriminals have evidently begun to target end-users more often. Consumers are worried about password breaches, property theft, identity theft, and fraud, among others. Digital-only providers are, thus, at the forefront of the fight against cybercrime.

A survey by Pymnts.com revealed that the low-friction user experience offered by digital-only banks is enticing for consumers but the fear of cybercrimes is the number one deterrent. The distrust in digital-only banks is particularly strong among baby boomers and Gen Xers, but also exists among millennials. The good news, however, is that with such heightened awareness of the risks, consumers are more willing to forgo convenience for the sake of safety.

Fortifying Security With Passwordless Authentication

Cyber security has always been a primary concern for the finance sector. Financial regulators have established strict security standards for digital banking to ensure the safety of consumers. However, with ever-evolving methods and sophistication of cyber-criminals, cyber security capabilities must be strengthened continuously.

Strengthening cyber security capabilities for digital-only banks is no longer just about fortifying their organization’s internal data, but more importantly, focusing on protecting the end-users. Knowledge-based authentication have proven to be quite insecure, and less secure over time. Consumers often struggle with creating and remembering strong passwords, the ease with which hackers can decode passwords, in addition to techniques like phishing where users could unknowingly reveal their usernames and passwords, making this security and authentication method a thing of the past.

Passwordless authentication is a modern type of authentication that uses public-private encrypted keys combined with device biometrics to replace knowledge-based authentication. A global alliance known as FIDO supports a set of passwordless authentication standards that leverage public-private key pairs. While the public key is shared with a service, the private user key remains safe as it is protected by the user’s PIN or biometrics, such as a fingerprint or facial recognition.

Passwordless authentication is incredibly convenient for end-users but also among the safest and most secure methods for consumers or employees. If you’re interested in strengthening your organization’s cyber security capabilities, read more about Nok Nok’s industry-leading FIDO platform.

“Cloud computing” and “cloud-based applications” continue to provide many significant benefits to corporate-level digital activities. Transferring computational and even software needs online in “the cloud” offers companies many cost and operational benefits. Businesses that use cloud computing can achieve their computational needs online without needing to purchase hardware. Often, that cloud-based computational power exceeds what they could afford if they had to buy their own equipment.

At the same time, could-based storage and applications mean that executives and employees no longer have to retrieve data or work on only one machine at a home office. The data and software are always available online, provided staff has the right equipment and clearance to access it.

However, with these tangible work and cost benefits come new concerns such as security.

IT Experts Are Worried About Cyber Security

The ease of access to online data or applications also means that while staff can access their data or software anywhere, potentially from any online-enabled device, this also raises the possibility that criminals can too. Cloud-based storage and computing require extra cyber security considerations, but in a survey conducted across 1500 IT personnel by the Ponemon Institute, 60% of IT and security leaders lacked confidence in their organization’s ability to correctly handle the extra requirements of cyber security that cloud-based operations require. 59% of respondents cited account takeover or credential/ID theft as the top cyber security risk.

Many IT personnel are finding that traditional legacy security methods such as a single-password system are no longer sufficient to enforce modern security needs, especially now that multiple devices can access the same account. New protocols, such as Zero Trust Network Access, employ newer safeguards, such as multifactor authentication, that add extra, more secure levels of access and, in some cases, eliminate the need for passwords entirely, using biometrics, passkey systems, and other mechanisms that don’t require a user to memorize something to get access to an account or data.

A More Secure Future

As more operations shift to a cloud-based architecture, organizations must accompany this shift with an appropriate reinforcement of cyber security. New multifactor security concepts can do away with the vulnerability of a single-password system and eliminate the inconvenience of a long string of alphanumeric characters to try to offset that vulnerability. Groups like the Fast Identity Online Alliance or FIDO are helping to standardize this transition and make it easier and more interoperable for enterprises to get there. If you’re interested in using the FIDO protocol and moving to a passwordless authentication system, read here to learn more.

In the past, the traditional forms of digital security consisted of a single password for authentication. While convenient in that single passwords are easy to implement and verify, this system was also vulnerable and even inconvenient in other ways. Those vulnerabilities are becoming more apparent as companies move to cloud-based computing and applications, but fortunately, there is a solution like passwordless authentication.

The Password Problems

First, there is the issue with passwords themselves. The weakest security protocol right now is a single-password system because it means that stealing or guessing a password, complete access to data, or complete control of an account is a given. One workaround is to use “strong” passwords that are long, random strings of alphanumeric characters, making them hard for users to remember. So some, due to “password fatigue,” ignore this guidance for convenience. The other solution is to have many passwords to handle different aspects of a system, but due to the number and complexity of passwords, this often requires a passkey manager, which adds an extra layer of interference.

This has resulted in predictable ways to steal passwords. 80% of the data breaches that occur are usually the result of either “phishing,” which tricks users into volunteering passwords through fake emails, phone calls, or other forms of social engineering, or man-in-the-middle attack, which involves spying on a user and monitoring their access activities to steal passwords when they type them in.

The Passkey Arrives For Passwordless Authentication

The passkey concept is a comparatively new idea in digital security, but it brings a lot of promise for passwordless authentication. It is a feature being implemented by companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft in collaboration with the FIDO alliance that creates strong, cryptographic keys generated for you for easy passwordless authentication. Users that find apps that accept passkeys can have passkeys created for every username or account. That passkey is automatically entered with just one touch, similar to the autofill or auto-correct functions for text entry.

The system even allows people to log in to other devices that don’t have a user’s account or passkey system present. All it takes is activating the passkey feature that then creates a QR code that a user’s phone scans so the passkey on the phone can verify and authenticate everything. It’s just one more way that security is working on more durable systems that can eliminate phishing and man-in-the-middle attacks while making passwordless authentication simple and easy for people to use. If you’re interested in using the FIDO protocol and moving to a password-free system, read here to learn more.