When you’re browsing a website and the mouse cursor disappears, it might be a computer glitch—or it might be a deliberate test to find out who you are.
The way you press, scroll and type on a phone screen or keyboard can be as unique as your fingerprints or facial features.
So, to fight fraud, a growing number of banks and merchants are tracking visitors’ physical movements as they use websites and apps, The New York Times reports.
The data collection is invisible to those being watched. Using sensors in your phone or code on websites, companies can gather thousands of data points, known as “behavioral biometrics,” to help prove whether a digital user is actually the person they claim to be.
To security officials, the technology is a powerful safeguard. Major data breaches are a near-daily occurrence. Cyber thieves have obtained billions of passwords and other sensitive personal information, which can be used to steal from customers’ bank and shopping accounts and fraudulently open new ones.
“Identity is the ultimate digital currency, and it’s being weaponized at an industrial scale,” said Alisdair Faulkner, one of the founders of ThreatMetrix, which makes fraud detection software for large merchants and financial companies. Because each reaction is so individual, it’s hard for a fraudulent user to fake. And because customers never know the monitoring technology is there, it doesn’t impose the kind of visible, and irritating, roadblocks that typically accompany security tests. You don’t need to press your thumb on your phone’s fingerprint reader or type in an authentication code.
Read the full story.
Banks and retailers are tracking how you type, swipe and tap
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