“…if something unusual is attempted – if a user tries to transfer a lot of money from an uncommon location, for example – the system will automatically trigger additional authentication mechanisms, such as biometric authentication via fingerprint or facial recognition.”

Gemalto has announced a new authentication platform for online banking based primarily on behavioral biometrics and contextual metadata.

Called the Gemalto Assurance Hub, its default security process analyzes patterns in user behavior as well as data pertaining to things like the user’s location and the device being used in order to assess potential security threats. In this way, standard transactions can be done largely through passive authentication mechanisms. But if something unusual is attempted – if a user tries to transfer a lot of money from an uncommon location, for example – the system will automatically trigger additional authentication mechanisms, such as biometric authentication via fingerprint or facial recognition.

In a statement announcing the solution, Gemalto asserted that the Gemalto Assurance Hub takes a “flexible hub approach” allowing it to “easily integrate banks’ existing solutions as well as evolving over time to include the latest fraud protection technology.”

The solution should appeal to a financial services industry that is increasingly interested in the kind of passive authentication enabled by behavioral biometrics, and in multimodal security for more sensitive applications.