INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security
iiDENTIFii to help reverse grey listing of South African banks by using liveness in biometric security
In January 2025 , the global anti-money laundering watchdog , the Financial Action Task Force , will review its decision to greylist South Africa and interrogate the public and private sector measures to address its concerns . The country will need to demonstrate a practical , scalable plan to combat money laundering , fraud and other financial crimes .
Failing to achieve this will have serious economic knock-on effects , such as a significant decrease in international capital inflows and downgrading by credit rating agencies , all of which will negatively impact the Rand . An extended greylisting is also a serious threat to state-owned enterprises that rely on offshore debt capital markets for funding .
iiDENTIFii has to date partnered with three leading South African banks to fortify their digital identification and onboarding processes . This is part of a wider banking strategy to protect companies and consumers against AML and fraud .
Biometric security threats currently fall into two categories : presentation attacks and digital injection attacks . Presentation attacks refer to photos , videos , or even masks being held up to a screen to fool the technology into mapping the features of the identity being defrauded .
On the other hand , digital injection attacks see imagery injected directly into the video stream , either through emulators , hacking tools , or virtual cameras . This directly injected imagery includes sophisticated deepfakes or face swaps ’ where AI technology spoofs another person ’ s likeness .
Digital injection attack detection needs fundamentally different techniques from presentation attack detection . Many current biometric systems are not equipped to defend against this fast-growing threat and financial institutions must find a new way to
Murray Collyer , Chief Operating Officer , iiDENTIFii prove identity to prevent money laundering and cyberattacks . The answer lies in the use of liveness in authentication .
Simply put , liveness is the confirmation and verification that there is a human being conducting a transaction on the other side of the screen . While cybercriminals can mine personal data and override certain systems through targeted attacks , it is more difficult to forge a sense of human liveness .
iProov , iiDENTIFii ’ s technology partner , reveals in a new 2023 study that there has been a 149 % increase in digital injection attacks and a 295 % increase in face swaps . With the emergence and growth of face swaps , low-skilled criminals now have the means to launch advanced attacks . Threat actors launched motion-based attacks simultaneously and at scale against hundreds of systems globally . p
Murray Collyer , Chief Operating Officer of iiDENTIFii says , “ If banks want to effectively and reliably counter financial crime , they need to validate one critical piece of information : a person ’ s identity . Banks need the security that a person performing a transaction on the other side of the screen is who they say they are .”
“ Over the next 18 months , we believe the full impact of this solution will be visible and hopefully play a part in shifting the needle on the greylisting decision . Our 4D Liveness is resilient to deepfake and replay attacks . It comprises different colour lights that reflect in a certain sequence off the user ’ s face , which helps determine true biometric liveness . This has been the solution of choice for South Africa ’ s leading banks .”
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