Identity Jedi Newsletter - 17th Edition

Wednesday 1/4/22 - Identity Jedi Newsletter - Subscribe

Welcome to the 17th Edition of the Identity Jedi Newsletter! 

Hey Jedi! Happy Fricking New Year! Welcome to 2023 and the 17th edition of the Identity Jedi Newsletter ( abbreviating to IDJ going forward). It feels like it's been forever since last we spoke. ( Or since last you read, and I typed, and no one spoke, unless you read this out loud...but I digress). Happy to be back and deliver the greatest written content to your inbox every week. No hyperbole.

This edition also launches the first premium edition of the IDJ Newsletter! Special thanks to the Jedi who've already signed up! You get a special section in the IDJ. Consider it like a VIP section. Bottle service, velvet ropes, the whole nine!

Let's get to the Good Stuff!

SecureAuth CEO talks about the future of authentication

Paul Trulove became SecureAuth’s CEO about a year ago. During his tenure, the company achieved several milestones in passwordless authentication. In a recent announcement, he stated that many companies were shifting to passwordless authentication to improve the employee experience. "One of the main areas employees continue to highlight as an area for improvement is authentication." He adds that SecureAuth is addressing these challenges by removing the risk of inappropriate access and improving the authentication experience for end users. 

The authentication market is such an interesting one to be in. It's become so commoditized over the years that it seems less about who offers what tech and more so about who meets your preference. Dare I say, who is solving your business problem? ( I'll save that rant for another time)  But as we see these vendors start to consolidate, what happens to the differentiation? 

Ready or not, blockchain is here

South Korea’s blockchain-based national mobile digital identity system is not operational yet, but it is already in use for credentials such as the mobile driving license. Young people can acquire credentials for the first time and a legal instrument may accelerate the rollout of credentials. No personally identifiable information is stored on the driving license chip, but a key that's checked against the central server. The phone camera scans the face of the driver, generating a biometric template to compare with that held on the central server, and phone number, a significant marker of identity in South Korea, is also checked.

We are moving into the world of passwordless and consumer-driven authentication. So we better all get comfortable with it real quick, but also, we better start making damn sure we are rolling this out responsibly. Identity is quickly becoming front and center, we better make sure we're ready.

FTX...WTF SBF

Non-US customers have requested the bankruptcy court to keep their identities private in the ongoing chapter 11 bankruptcy case of FTX. These customers say revealing their identity could expose them to targeted cyberattacks and scams. This is because some cyber attackers are exploiting the current situation of the crypto market to steal funds from the FTX platform. They are targeting non-US FTX customers as government officials and scamming them of their money.

I feel like I'm becoming that person that just sees what I want everywhere. But identity literally is in everything we do and seems to be at the heart of every breach, hack, etc. While I'm grateful that consumers are demanding more protection around their information, but

Last Word

 Happy New Year Jedi! May 2023 bring joy and success to your endeavors, and thank you for being a part of this growing user base! I'm excited to see where this year takes us as an industry. The big themes I'm looking at for this year ( and will be talking about a lot) are: Synthetic Identity, The return to IAM suites, and Web3. We'll see movement in these three areas this year, with each one impacting how the industry grows in years to come. I sense special IDJ editions on these topics in the coming months. Just looking at the news cycle in this weeks edition and you can see the connection between technologies like passwordless authentication and the need for more dynamic authentication journeys, and the rollout of mobile identity services allowing consumers to choose which data they share. I don't see these trends slowing down, but I do question our overall readiness. Time will tell. 

Until next time Jedi,

The Identity Jedi

 Be Kind to each other, Be Good to each other, Love each other.

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