Now that bad actors have made authenticating into our own accounts their business, consumers are now faced with either a lot of friction or possibly having their private information exposed to the wrong people. While a quick check on some basic “vitals” might have been more than enough before the age of data breaches and social media, now those checks are slowly proving more harmful than beneficial. Out-of-wallet questions are no longer a challenge for a fraudster who is well prepared, armed with the latest breached data, and is relying on these broken authentication practices to pave the path to their own success.
Bad actors will continue to frequent contact centers that don’t put up many roadblocks to take over new accounts. But there are significant benefits to freeing the organization from reliance on knowledge-based authentication questions. Using technology to help confirm that you are ‘letting the right one in’ can help reduce average handle times from contact centers by skipping over the questions as the authenticator. But more than just saving time, both customers and agents will be happier to not have to play the question and answer game that we now know is not providing enough protection.
Good authentication practices help to keep fraud out. Replacing KBA questions with passive authentication helps you to know your customers and get them the help that they need faster. It can also provide insights on calls that we didn’t know previously. Pindrop experienced this first hand at FNBO, the largest privately held bank subsidiary in the United States and a Pindrop client. After working with Pindrop, FNBO reported reducing their OTP usage by 75% while simultaneously reducing overall AHT by 30 seconds. Additionally, their account takeover recognition rate also went up by 59% leading to a 16% decrease in total ATO losses and a 47% decrease in average loss.
As board members demand better customer experience with every investment, customers preferring more advanced authentication methods, coupled with data breaches and the dark web now destroying a provider’s ability to use knowledge-based questions, now might be a good time to change the locks. Technology now has opened a door to allow enterprises to advance the way customers can open more worlds safely and privately with just their voice. You simply have to make sure that you are ‘letting the right one in.’
Want to learn more?
Understand how bad actors rely on certain authentication methods to commit fraud so that you can open worlds for the right person.
