South Korean Seminar Highlights the Expansion of FIDO Standards

The FIDO Alliance recently hosted an authentication seminar in Seoul, South Korea, where it highlighted several use cases that demonstrate the utility of password-free security. The examples were all pulled from the Korean and Japanese markets, and help to explain why FIDO security has become more and more popular in the past few years.

Samsung Mobile is perhaps the most notable of the seminar’s three examples. The tech giant first introduced biometric authentication five years ago with the Galaxy S5, and has continued to support password-free security ever since. With the Galaxy S10, the company became the first to achieve FIDO Alliance Biometric Component Certification, and it is currently planning to integrate FIDO tech into its proprietary Samsung Internet web browser.

The seminar’s other FIDO proponents include Line and SK Telecom, the latter of which has leveraged biometric FIDO tech to secure the Group Mobile Portal for its SK parent company. The Portal handles logins for more than 47,000 SK employees, but the introduction of biometric security has eliminated credential stuffing attacks. It has also reduced the amount of time needed to log into the system and made the company’s operations more efficient.

LINE, meanwhile, has adopted FIDO2 standards for its LINE Pay app for iOS, and plans to do the same for LINE Pay Android. The FIDO Alliance also revealed that the South Korean government has enabled FIDO logins for several of its e-services, and is hoping to expand its support for FIDO2 relatively soon.

Together, the various examples show how (and why) FIDO has become the security standard for many of the world’s largest companies, turning the South Korean seminar into an apt showcase for the organization’s objectives ahead of its first major industry event. FIDO is currently searching for speakers for the inaugural Authenticate conference in June, where it will continue to promote password-free security in an effort to make digital interactions more secure.