BioCatch has patented a series of methods for determining or estimating the amount of force applied by a user to the touchscreen of an electronic device, which the company says will enable it to extend its pioneering work to distinguish legitimate from fraudulent users with behavioral biometrics and artificial intelligence.
The patent is the 39th granted to the company by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with 25 more pending. BioCatch says the invention is important because it allows pressure data to be extracted from the mobile device without the need for additional hardware, and can contribute to significantly higher accuracy in detecting fraud in an online session. Touch pressure is one of approximately 2,000 behavioral parameters analyzed by BioCatch to build user profiles and gain behavioral insights.
“The company’s IP portfolio is far and away the most robust amongst the behavioral biometrics players,” comments BioCatch Founder, CTO and Vice President of Business Development Avi Turgeman. “Our patent work began in 2010, at a time when others in the security industry were just becoming aware of threats like Remote Access Attacks (RATs), Man-in-the-Browser (MitB) Trojans, and so forth. This enormous head start means that current and potential competitors need to find other ways of accomplishing what BioCatch offers or run the risk of infringement.”
“Patents and other types of intellectual property have long been synonymous with client and shareholder value, as a measure of a company’s commitment to continued innovation and market leadership,” says BioCatch Chairman and CEO Howard Edelstein. “This is the main reason tier one banks and other global clients turn to us to help them deal with the ever-changing challenges around user authentication. As online applications rapidly evolve from desktop to mobile and behavioral biometrics takes center stage in defining digital identity, the patent granted last week gives BioCatch a significant advantage in the mobile arena and adds to our impressive overall IP portfolio.”
BioCatch was recently named to the 2019 CB Insights AI-100 List of top startups and had the third most patents among companies on the list, and also launched a capability to detect “vishing” social engineering attacks last month. The company is presenting its behavioral biometric technology at RSA Conference 2019.
