BioCatch, the global leader in behavioral biometrics, today announced that its compilation of privacy-protected digital behavioral profiles now includes more than 150 million individual online banking users, largely through its deployment at more than 40 major global banks and other financial institutions worldwide. BioCatch now analyzes more than 1 billion digital sessions per month in real-time for potential fraud and other types of cybercrime to protect online users and their assets, making the company far and away the industry leader.
BioCatch pioneered the use of behavioral biometrics to root out online fraud with its founding in 2011 and the cache of behavioral data it has accumulated over the decade since is unmatched. Through continuous authentication of online sessions, behavioral biometrics flags physical and cognitive device interactions that present potential risk, without collecting personally identifiable information (PII). As the company’s client base and data set have grown, use cases have expanded to address some of the most pressing digital identity challenges that exist today, including detecting the use of stolen or synthetic identities at the onboarding stage, recognizing account takeovers and flagging increasingly sophisticated social engineering scams.
By all accounts, cybercrime has accelerated dramatically as a result of the coronavirus, as fraudsters have sought to take advantage of distracted individuals working from home or dispersed companies whose technologists have been scattered in remote locations. Barracuda Networks notes a 667% increase in phishing attacks as of mid-June since the end of February. Phishing has increased 5-fold in the U.K. over a similar time period, according to security company Darktrace.
“Online authentication methods have to change, especially in light of the increased security risk inherent in remote access,” said BioCatch Chairman & CEO Howard Edelstein. “With behavioral biometrics, we passively monitor digital sessions from start-to-finish, eliminating friction for online banking users and keeping their assets safe from the rising tide of cybercrime. We’ve reached 150 million user profiles because we’ve been collecting digital data for almost a decade, far longer than anyone else. That’s why we can detect anomalies faster and with more accuracy than anyone else, even without collecting any PII.”
“With the rapid growth in digital-first channel usage has come a rapid growth in cyberattacks, typically engineered with stolen credentials,” said Julie Conroy, Research Director, Aite Group. “As banks and other financial institutions compete to provide the best customer experience over these channels, low-friction security techniques such as compiling large amounts of behavioral data have become a powerful contributor to making fraud risk decisions for these institutions.”
BioCatch grew annual recurring revenues by 150% in 2019 and is on pace for similar growth in 2020. The company recently raised $145 million in a Series C investment round led by Bain Capital’s Tech Opportunities fund, the growth investing business of Bain Capital. Also joining the round were American Express Ventures, CreditEase, Maverick Ventures and Our Crowd, among others.