Behavioral biometrics specialist BioCatch has filed a patent entitled, “System, Device, and Method Estimating Force Applied to a Touch Surface,” which covers technology that enables device makers to forego costly hardware components that are typically needed to estimate the force and pressure applied to touch surfaces on devices, such as smartphones, tablets and smartwatches.
Measuring the pressure from touching a screen is an important capability for device makers today to enhance usability, as well as for application developers who could leverage this information to increase security and enable continuous authentication based on interaction with a screen. Specifically designed for the small screen, BioCatch has invented a method for collecting data that allows device makers to gather information from a device and show high resolution results of finger touch areas over time without needing additional hardware to do so.
“Our ‘touch-force’ patent, along with our entire IP portfolio represents true breakthroughs for our industry and they are the result of the almost obsessive focus we place on constant innovation to counter the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks,” said Eyal Goldwerger, CEO of BioCatch. “The emphasis on mobile in particular reflects how important the platform is to our target customers—from banking, to credit card issuers, large e-commerce players and even insurance companies—and the need to prevent fraud while maintaining an optimum user experience. This means properly authenticating valid users and recognizing anomalies in real-time and at scale. Our patent portfolio is a demonstration of our market commitment.”
In addition to the touch-force patent, BioCatch has obtained eight new patents this year, including one that covers the ability to recognize that multiple people are using shared credentials. The application of this patent goes beyond traditional fraud prevention in banking, addressing the needs of the software and content monetization market (IP protection, licensing, usage tracking, etc.). Another describes a way to detect whether the device ID has been masked, differentiating between a genuine user who utilizes a real-world computing device in order to access a service or a remote server, and an attacker who accesses the service or the remote server by utilizing a Virtual Machine (VM). The application of this patent speaks to fraudsters' ability to hide device ID information, circumventing a widely used fraud prevention methodology.
“The market is recognizing that traditional fraud prevention measures like device authentication, IP recognition and geolocation are being circumvented and new ways of understanding how cyber-criminals behave must be examined,” said Avi Turgeman, CTO and co-founder of BioCatch. “With behavioral biometrics providing a powerful way to continuously authenticate users, our mission has evolved and expanded over the last several years to be able to recognize human and non-human criminal behavior alike.”
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