What are the Different Types of Authentication Methods?

TL;DR:

• Authentication is essential to protect user accounts, sensitive data, and company assets from cyber threats, such as phishing, malware, and unauthorized access
• Advanced authentication types such as passwordless, adaptive, and behavioral biometrics leverage AI and dynamic assessment to offer security tailored to individual user contexts and risk levels.
• While selecting an authentication method, consider factors like security level, compatibility, user experience, scalability, cost, and regulatory compliance to ensure a seamless and secure experience.
• Arya AI offers APIs for secure user authentication, including liveness detection, face verification, deepfake detection, and document fraud detection, providing companies with strong, AI-powered security integrations.

Almost all types of applications and services require authentication to uphold security and mitigate risks. Authenticating user/s helps organizations understand if they are who they claim to be. It also helps protect customers from malicious actors. For instance, account takeover is one of the most prevalent scams in the finance sector.

Authenticating users is required to avoid these situations and unauthorized access. However, authentication methods also differ depending on the account or the sensitivity of the services one tries to use.

Let’s take a close look at the different types of authentication methods and their importance.

List of Common Authentication Methods

Common authentication methods like password-based authentication have evolved today due to sophisticated fraud attempts. Additionally, with the advancement of AI, several authentication methods, like facial, voice, and fingerprint recognition, integrate AI to ensure strengthened security.

Here is a list of some of the common types of authentication methods.

Traditional authentication methods:

1. Certificate authentication
2. Password-based authentication
3. Email Authentication
4. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) authentication
5. Single sign-on
6. Database authentication
7. Remote authentication
8. Server and network-based authentication

New authentication methods:

1. Multi-factor authentication
2. Two-factor authentication
3. Biometric authentication
4. Token authentication
5. Behavioral authentication
6. QR code authentication
7. Blockchain authentication
8. Passwordless authentication
9. Adaptive authentication
10. Cryptography authentication
11. OAuth authentication
12. Payment authentication
13. Wireless authentication

Other authentication methods:

1. RFID authentication
2. Web application authentication
3. Vault authentication
4. Web browser authentication

What is User Authentication?

Before learning about the types of authentication in more detail, let’s try to understand what user authentication actually is.

Authentication is a security process that verifies a user's identity when they try to access a service or application. Generally, users create an account and use a password to access these services.

However, weak passwords are the biggest threats to cybersecurity. Hence, companies deploy authentication methods to the login process to ensure the user is who they claim to be.

Why is Authentication Needed?

Authentication methods provide an additional layer of security to user accounts and critical company details and information.

Fraudsters today have several types of cyberattacks in their arsenal, including phishing, spoofing, malware, and data breaches to hack into a system.

In the financial sector, banks use authentication to verify the identity of their users to secure sensitive data, such as user information, transaction history, and banking details. At the same time, banks also validate the parties involved in transactions to avoid fraudulent and unauthorized transactions.

This not only helps banks comply with regulatory laws and regulations but also builds customer trust in the financial institutions.

Common Types of Authentication Methods

Depending on the security needs, different systems require different authentication methods. Here are the most common types of authentication methods used by organizations.

1. Biometric authentication

Biometric authentication verifies a user’s identity based on their unique biological characteristics. This includes fingerprint scanning, face matching, and voice recognition.

The system stores data related to the characteristics mentioned above and compares it with the user’s physical traits to authenticate their identity and ensure secure access.

This authentication type plays a significant role in the banking industry as, according to a survey, around 53% of customers prefer to switch their bank if their current bank doesn’t offer biometric authentication options.

2. Multi-Factor authentication

MFA, or Multi-Factor Authentication, uses more than two types of verification factors to authenticate a user’s identity.

While one factor can be a password, the other can usually be an OTP, security pin, fingerprint, or other relevant factor. MFA is one of the most trusted authentication factors by organizations worldwide and is projected to reach a $20 billion market share by 2025.

3. Token authentication

As the name suggests, token authentication allows users to gain access to a system once they enter their credentials and receive a unique token to gain authorized access.

Given its dual steps in the verification process, token authentication is often considered a type of MFA.

4. Password authentication

Password authentication is a traditional and one of the widely used types of authentication that requires users to simply enter their password to access their accounts or other services.

The stronger and more complex the password is, the more difficult it is for malicious entities to guess and hack into user accounts.

However, since not every user follows the best password practices, resulting in data breaches, implementing other types of authentication, like MFA, is recommended to ensure the utmost cybersecurity.

5. Passwordless authentication

Unlike other types of authentication methods, passwordless authentication doesn’t involve entering passwords as a step of the authentication process.

Instead, users provide other forms of identity verification proof, such as face verification, fingerprint, proximity badges, passkeys, magic links, Authenticator Apps, or codes generated by hardware tokens.

Passwordless authentication may include the single factor or MFA approach, depending on the security requirements.

6. Certificate-based authentication

This form of authentication often uses a digital certificate to validate the authenticity of the user. It often acts like a passport or driving license in real life.

In the realm of cybersecurity, this certificate acts like the user’s digital identity which consists of a public key and the certificate authority’s digital signature.

So, whenever a user tries to log in to their account, the server matches and validates the certificate’s public key and the user who owns the certificate to provide secure access.

7. Authenticator app

Authentication using an authenticator app is a type of 2FA, or MFA, that generates time-based or event-based one-time passwords when users try to log in to their accounts.

This authentication type is often used in large MNCs and organizations, especially to ensure secure remote login. Common authenticator apps include Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, Authy, and LastPass Authenticator.

8. Adaptive authentication

Adaptive authentication, also called risk-based authentication, is a dynamic authentication process that adjusts the authentication process based on the risk level of the transactions or login attempts.

It assesses several environmental and behavioral factors, such as the user’s geolocation, device identification, IP address, and time of access, to determine whether to allow or block user access.

Authentication methods Susceptible to Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Many authentication methods are susceptible to exploits and vulnerabilities. Here is a list of such authentication methods with their associated risks:

• Password authentication: Weak passwords that are simple and easy to guess are common targets of cybercriminals, allowing them to hack a user account using brute-force attacks. Besides, attackers can leverage other techniques, like credential theft, phishing, and password reuse to exploit this vulnerability and hack user’s account.
• Token-based authentication: Software or hardware tokens, such as USB keys or proximity cards, can be stolen or cloned by hackers to gain unauthorized access to user accounts or systems.
• Behavioral biometrics: In some cases, attackers may constantly monitor users’ behavior to mimic patterns, such as mouse movements or typing speed, to bypass behavioral authentication.

With the advancement in authentication methods, attackers find new and evolved ways to bypass them and hack a sensitive system. Hence, using strong and appropriate authentication solutions, such as biometric authentication or MFA, is key to reducing vulnerabilities and cyberattacks.

Factors To Consider When Selecting an Authentication Method

The authentication requirement for an eCommerce company may vary from that of a banking institution based on user profiles, regulatory requirements, and security needs. This prompts organizations to consider a few factors when selecting an authentication method.

1. Security level: Choose an authentication method that provides robust security features against traditional and modern attack vectors, including phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, credential stuffing, password guessing, brute-force attacks, and social engineering.
2. Compatibility: For optimum functioning, it is crucial to choose a compatible authentication method that seamlessly integrates with your current security infrastructure, such as applications and third-party services, across different platforms and devices.
3. User experience: According to a report, 12% of companies want to improve user experience during the authentication process. Hence, your authentication method shouldn’t be too complex and should provide an intuitive user experience without compromising security effectiveness.
4. Scalability: Your authentication method should easily scale to adapt to the growing users with your growing user database without affecting security or performance.
5. Cost: Depending on your company’s budget and security requirements, consider factors like the cost of implementation (software and infrastructure costs), maintenance costs (regular updates and support), and the requirement of additional resources for authentication methods.
6. Regulatory compliance: Industries, like the BFSI industry, need to comply with specific authentication standards, including PCI-DSS and GDPR, to ensure data protection. Choose an authentication solution that meets these compliance needs.
7. Recovery options: What happens when users lose access to their primary method of authentication and cannot access their accounts? In such cases, having a backup authentication method, such as security questions, email verification, backup codes, etc., is critical to ensuring a convenient and seamless login and user experience.

Why Choose Arya AI For User Authentication?

At Arya AI, we offer secure APIs that can be seamlessly integrated into your existing systems to prevent cyberattacks and data breaches and ensure secure account access and onboarding.

A few examples of these APIs are:

• Arya APIs like Liveness Detection and Face Verification helps prevent spoofing attacks and ensures that users are genuinely present during authentication.
• Deepfake Detection detects AI-generated fake media and prevents deepfake fraud, ensuring the integrity of video-based interactions and recordings.

Arya AI offers several other AI APIs, like signature detection and document fraud detection, that can enhance your authentication and onboarding processes. These prevent fraud and reduce the chances of data breaches.

Conclusion

60% of IT and cybersecurity leaders mentioned biometric authentication, such as fingerprints, voice verification, and iris scans, are expected to replace workplace passwords. At the same time, 46% of experts mentioned that MFA would replace passwords in the near future.

Hence, data and customer security being one of the most prominent pillars of a secure and successful organization, implementing secure authentication solutions within your existing systems is crucial. However, it need not be overwhelming.

To facilitate a secure and seamless user onboarding process, at Arya AI, we offer easy-to-integrate APIs with a 99.99% success rate to prevent risks of cybersecurity attacks. Explore more APIs, or contact us today to learn more.