Biometric Security: Strengthening Online Banking Protection

Have you ever gotten locked out of your account because you forgot a password?

We've all been there, and it never gets less frustrating. That's why we highly encourage our customers to enable Touch & Face ID on their smartphones when logging into the UBank mobile app, because it makes logging into mobile banking seamless and secure. 

Security is something we never take lightly. With Touch & Face ID, you're not compromising security because these biometric technologies provide features to securely authenticate yourself when logging into mobile apps on your devices. Biometric security is popular because it's so simple to use, says Professor Anil Jain of Michigan State University. "There's no need for a passcode, you just put your finger or face in front of the mobile phone and it will unlock it." 

You can even take advantage of these authentication methods when authorizing digital payments with Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay. The beauty of biometric security features is that they are only going to improve in security and ease of use over time. As our smart phones continue to get smarter, so will our biometric security capabilities. Apple and Samsung have paved the way for biometric security to become the norm on all smart devices in the near futures. As this becomes a reality, we will see more and more third-party app developers adding biometric security as a login option. Thankfully, banking apps that require a high level of security have already adopted this tech. 

Touch ID is safe, secure, and proven. Using your fingerprint, apps are able to authenticate you in order to login.

Face ID is simple, natural, and effortless.  Using your device’s camera, facial recognition software scans your face and analyzes thousands of points to authenticate you effectively making this biometric difficult to fool. 

But how secure is it, really?

According to Forbes, "phone makers must consider two aspects of biometric security: protection of stored biometric data, and defense against 'presentation attacks' that use fake -- or 'spoofed' -- biometrics to try and fool an authentication system. To protect stored biometric data, it should be kept in an isolated part of a smartphone's internal memory and not transmitted to a database on an external computer server. As Apple's Phil Schiller said, "Your face data's protected with a secure enclave... the processing is done on iPhone X and not sent to a server". Jain believes that's the best storage solution for biometrics. "It is not in some central database, which is [more] likely to be hacked."Apple's engineering team "worked hard to make sure Face ID can't easily be spoofed by things like photographs", testing the system with realistic models created by professional mask-makers and make-up artists in Hollywood." 

Setting Up Touch & Face ID

Many devices walk you through setting up these features when activating the device, and the same is true with mobile banking. If you'd like to enable biometric security on you UBank mobile app, follow these steps:

1. Download the UBank mobile app (for personal or business).
2. Login using your username and password.
3. After logging in, click the "More" icon at the bottom right corner of your screen. 
4. Under "Settings," select "Touch ID" or "Face ID."
5. Click the slider next to "Touch ID" or "Face ID" to enable biometric security upon login (enabled when the slider is green). 
6. If the above doesn't work, you'll need to consult your devices' Settings. 

Still need help enabling Touch & Face ID? Feel free to call our customer service team at (936) 639-5566, and they would be more than happy to walk you through it. 

Rest assured, we'll continue to keep you updated on the latest technology as it becomes available. We won't ever leave you hanging!