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Biocatch uses cutting edge technology to stop, find and catch cyber criminals.
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BioCatch, an Israeli high tech start up, provides behavioral authentication and threat detection for mobile and web applications which allow people and companies, such as banks, to spot and catch would be cyber criminals. Users of banking and E commerce on line are constantly threatened by hackers and malware uploaders who take over banking accounts or use man in the browser and remote access takeovers to steal people’s personal information and their money.
Established in 2011, BioCatch has invented systems for both personal computers and mobile devices that can recognize a user’s personal behavior patterns in order to confirm his identity. With the aid of psychologists, the company learns the personal habits of users, such as how a person types or writes and surfs the web, in order to confirm their identity. This is needed today since hackers keep finding ways to steal people’s passwords and log ins.
Today most web sites that keep a log of a user’s payment information and banks only double check an identity when a log in is made by the user from a different location than usual. If the customer is logging in from an IP address in a different country or at an unusual time of day, then the standard practice is to simply ask a predetermined question for extra verification.
But new software allows thieves to create a false IP for anywhere in the world and hackers can get the answers to verification questions, so new security measures are required. The addition of biometric profiling can help banks and other companies prevent fraud.
When you enter any site that utilizes the BioCatch system your personal style, like typing and use of the cursor, is analyzed for identity verification. If an application requires the user to click on a button, the BioCatch technology will shift the button by a few degrees and measure the unconscious adjustments a user makes. With mobile devices, the way in which a person holds it is also reviewed.
However, the company gets no personal information about the clients of its customers and the service is provided through cloud computing.
The user will not even know that the system is in effect. The average person is unaware of his own subtle and unique style of movement.
The co-founder and chief executive officer of BioCatch, Benny Rosenbaum, previously co founded Magic Software Enterprises and was the CEO of both VapiSoft and MyNayad. Rosenbaum said, “The main problem for banks today is not catching the fraud but the friction caused with genuine online users.” He also claims that BioCatch’s product is already being tested by some important financial institutions around the world, but does not say which ones.
Avi Turgeman, the company’s other co-founder, is its chief technical officer. He is a physicist who also founded Vocalzoom and Tapingo.
In a press release Rosenbaum and Turgeman said, “Virtually every financial institution we’ve talked to is interested in testing our technology, and enterprise security departments are intrigued by what we deliver. BioCatch brings a disruptive new technology to a field that is actively looking for a next-generation approach to authentication, fraud control and cyber security.”
Previously the head of new technologies at RSA, Uri Rivner is BioCatch’s vice president of business development and cyber strategy. He said of their product, “The security market is changing. The tidal wave of Mobility and Cloud brings an unprecedented demand for security controls with zero impact on usability. BioCatch brings that rare out-of-the-box thinking that the industry seeks in order to turn the tide on Cyber threats without making it inconvenient for users”
According to Rivner, as much as 4-8% of legitimate transactions get blocked by the wide nets cast by security programs in current use which leads to frustration on the part of the consumer.
Companies pay BioCatch an annual per user fee, but the prices are reduced the more users a firm checks with the program.
BioCatch has closed a recent round of funding in which it raised $6.5 million from JANVEST Technologies, Centillion, Ourcrowd, and David Assia which brought its total funding to $10.5 million.
In 2012, it was named the cyber security company of the year in Israel.
