Biometrics , Identity & Access Management , Security Operations

Payments Rules Bring Customer Authentication to Forefront

Payment regulations in Europe have forced retailers to implement strong authentication that's phishing-resistant and facilitates greater customer understanding, says FIDO Alliance's Christina Hulka.

See Also: Wipro, AWS Team Up to Address Compliance in the Cloud Era

This has spurred a push for secure payment confirmation in which customers must confirm to the payment provider what they're purchasing and how much they intend to spend before the transaction can be consummated. Although the European Union's revised Payment Services Directive has been around for many years, Hulka says there's been a recent push to strengthen security and ease of use (see: Jeremy Grant: Why the US Government Embraced FIDO Standards).

"It gives the customer assurance that they're buying from a genuine site and they are buying what they want to buy," Hulka says. "From the payment provider perspective, they have proof later if a customer decides they want to come back and say, 'Oh, no, I didn't buy that.' But the payment provider actually knows that they did, because the customer authenticated to that particular transaction."

In this video interview with Information Security Media Group from the FIDO Alliance's Authenticate 2022 conference, Hulka also discusses:

• Why payments regulators are focusing on authentication;
• The difference between traditional and phishing-resistant MFA;
• What makes biometrics better than a one-time password.

As the FIDO Alliance's executive director and chief operating officer, Hulka is chair of the board and oversees the day-to-day operations of the alliance, as well as FIDO's industry partnership program. Prior to stepping into the executive director role in May 2019, she spent nearly three years as chief of staff and senior director of operations at the FIDO Alliance. Before that, she spent 18 years at Visa, culminating in a role as senior director of global chip operations and analytics. Hulka started her career in the business development space at Beneficial Bank and Apollo Leisure.