The Equifax Journey To Passwordless Authentication
EQUIFAX HAS BUILT ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST ADVANCED AND EFFECTIVE CYBERSECURITY PROGRAMS OVER THE LAST SIX YEARS. As the organization continues its security leadership journey, it has completed another milestone of transitioning its employees to passwordless authentication. The milestone provides several benefits including:
Unparalleled Security: Passwordless technology, including the use of biometrics, helps eliminate the number one threat facing security teams: stolen credentials.
Enhanced Productivity: Removing the daily friction of passwords means no more resets, lockouts, or clunky Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). It’s saving time and costs.
Helping Future-Proof Against AI Threats: It eliminates secrets/Knowledge-Based Authentication (KBA) from helpdesk calls. In the past, AI voice cloning and deep fakes could have tricked people into giving away access, online or on the phone.
“When you look at all the threats that companies deal with everyday, the vast majority of them are because of what’s called credentials compromise,” said Jamil Farshchi, Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Technology Officer at Equifax. “Eliminating the use of credentials substantially has helped Equifax reduce a majority of the threats, achieving the most significant leap in risk reduction that I’ve ever seen, while also creating a more seamless experience for our global workforce of nearly 22,000 employees and contractors.”
Credentials can be compromised in a number of ways. The average person has 187 online accounts, so if a hacker gets the login information for one account, it can be used to exploit others. Generative AI tools are also making phishing campaigns more sophisticated and harder to spot. It takes an army of hackers to profile an entire workforce and then create targeted messages, tricking them into entering their credentials or other sensitive information. AI speeds that up and makes it easier for them to create the malware itself.
“Equifax continues to focus on being one day better, because our adversaries are dynamic, resilient, and adaptable. Prioritizing security and building it into our systems (vs. bolting it on) has become part of our culture and helps drive performance,” said Farshchi. “Passwordless authentication is just another aspect where prioritizing security has helped increase productivity while providing security enhancements to help employees do their jobs faster. It’s a win-win.”
The Equifax multi-year, more than $1.5 billion security and technology transformation has changed nearly every facet of the company’s infrastructure. And, the Equifax team approach to security has allowed the company to outperform all major industry benchmarks for the past four consecutive years, exceeding Technology and Financial Services companies analyzed in the latest Security Annual Report.
As Equifax proceeds with its security leadership journey, the organization will continue to share learnings and collaborate closely with customers, policymakers, and other organizations — helping shape the future of cybersecurity to better protect its own data while simultaneously moving the whole industry forward. Security can only be maintained through communication, collaboration, and transparency.
Read more about how Equifax continues to strengthen its cybersecurity readiness efforts.