Why Biometrics is a Must for Mobile App Security

Biometrics is an expanding part of the cutting edge security technology. I’m sure you already know that ‘Biometrics’ assess a persons’ physical as well as behavioral characteristics to verify their identity. These characteristics may include traits like your fingerprints and eyes, or your behavioral characteristics, like your ‘unique’ way of completing a security verification puzzle. This information is saved in a database, and every time you need access to a location or maybe you want to access your smartphone, the information you provide is compared with the data stored in the database. There are six types of biometric data, mentioned below:

• Face Recognition
• Iris Recognition
• Fingerprint Scanner
• Voice Recognition
• Hand Geometry
• Behavioral Characteristics

If you’ve ever used the facial recognition or fingerprint feature to unlock your smartphone or to access your online bank account, you have performed a biometrics verification of your identity. There are numerous uses of this cutting edge technology in today’s world, one such use is in ‘mobile applications’. In this article, I’m going to focus on the benefits of using ‘biometrics’ in mobile apps and how they can help improve app security.

Before I move on to explaining why ‘Biometrics’ is a must for mobile app security, let’s take a few moments to understand ‘why biometric verification is better than other authentication methods’.

Why Biometric is Better Than Other Security Authentication Methods

Here are the reasons why Biometrics tend to be more beneficial than other methods:

• Passwords and security patterns are easily forgotten, and if you plan on writing it down someplace, there is always a risk of someone else finding out. In biometrics, you can be sure that you won’t lose or forget your fingerprint, face, or iris.
• Because everyone has their own unique biometrics, it’s a much safer and hassle-free method.
• Your biometrics information remains constant over time.
• No one can steal or replicate your biometrics information.

All of these properties make biometrics a better and safer method to assure security measures. For large organizations that spend millions of dollars for security purposes, a password is the weakest method to assure security authentication. This is where Biometrics plays a major role.

Here is Why Biometrics Are a Must for Mobile App Security

Expert mobile application development companies work 24/7 and spend millions on developing mobile apps. Perfecting a mobile app isn’t an easy task, for an App to be successful, you have to make sure that it has error-free functionality, the design is flawless and user-friendly, and it adds value to the users. The most important part of mobile app developers is ‘App Security’. Consider a banking app, every time a user accesses their account using the mobile app, they are risking their life’s work by inserting their personal login information.

If an outsider breaches your app, people from all around the globe will be regretting using your app and your company’s hard work will go to waste. This is why mobile application development companies are on the lookout for better and safer security authentication methods.

With Biometrics, mobile apps can enhance their security features by a milestone:

• No More Stolen Passwords

Many banks have integrated biometric authentication features in their banking mobile applications such as ‘fingerprint or touchID’ to unlock a user’s account and to approve safer transactions. Passwords are the root cause for more than 81 percent of data breaches, this proves that they are one of the biggest flaws in your personal as well as your company’s security. Remember the time you opened your social media app to read your messages; After you’ve typed in your login credentials, only then did you notice that someone was looking over your shoulders. See how easy it is to hack your accounts.

So whether you want to protect your social media app or your banking app, biometrics are the safest way to secure your personal information. Users will no longer have to remember their passwords which makes this approach much more convenient and user-friendly. This is why mobile app development companies are adopting biometrics as an easy-to-use, as well as a secure solution.

• Privacy Protection

Everyone has faced privacy attacks one way or another. You might have saved all your personal photos and videos on a photo editing app, but later you realized that someone had seen your pictures and even sent themselves a copy of your pictures. This type of situation can be embarrassing and just painful. The situation gets even worse if your mobile phone gets stolen. In that case, it’s always better to be on the safe side. If someone gets access to your smartphone, it doesn’t mean that your personal mobile apps can’t be safe. With biometrics for mobile apps, users won’t ever have to fear that their data will be breached.

Another reason why mobile application development companies are adopting biometric authentication is that it reduces the chance of their apps getting hacked and minimizes cybersecurity issues. With an advancement of technology, mobile banking apps and devices are increasingly at risk of cybercriminals. The two-factor authentication methods are outright obsolete because hackers have found ways to duplicate the App interface, so that once users enter their passcodes into the fake interface, they can secretly change the credentials; Taking hold of all your personal information as well as your bank account. In this situation, biometric security authentication is the best security scheme to ward off hackers and cybercriminals.

• Proof of Identity

This is basically the biggest advantage of biometric authentication. The other two-factor authentication methods don’t exactly prove that it is actually you trying to access your app. These factors are based on ‘something that you know’ or ‘something that you are’, this information can be stolen from you. But, biometric security verification requires your physical features to allow access. This is definitely a big improvement over other security methods because this is the only method that provides real proof of your identity instead of just granting access.

• Ease of Use

If you think about it from the user perspective, constantly having to update your credentials with a unique username and a stronger password, is time-consuming and just plain annoying. How many passwords can a person possibly remember?
Biometric authentication allows users to have access to their devices and mobile apps quickly and seamlessly. All in all, considering the ease of use, enhanced security, and privacy protection, Biometrics is a must for mobile app security.

Wrapping Up:

Technology may be at its peak, but as technology becomes more evolved, the bad guys are also becoming more skilled at breaching your personal information. Biometric security verification for mobile apps is faster and safer as compared to other identity verification methods; Allowing businesses to identify their customers within seconds. With no fear of hackers and no fear of false identity, users no longer have to fear that someone might access their information or raid their bank account.

If you’re a mobile app development company looking for ways to enhance the security of your mobile apps, I hope that you found this article useful. Or, if you’d like to share or add something, feel free to leave a comment below, we would love to hear from you.

Authors’ Bio:

Khloe Hunter is a Digital Marketing Executive for Appverticals . Her expert writing skills, enable her to convert complex information, into content that anyone can read. Her technical educational background, combined with a know-how of content marketing, gives her an edge over others in a variety of blog posts.

Gravatar: khloehunter786@gmail.com