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From passwords to passkeys to a veritable alphabet soup of other options — second-factor authentication (2FA)/one-time passwords (OTP), multi-factor authentication (MFA), single sign-on (SSO), silent network authentication (SNA) — when it comes to a preeminent or even preferred type of identity authentication, there is little consensus among businesses or customers.
What there is agreement on, however, is the necessity of these tools. The FIDO Alliance found that more than half of customers (53%) saw an increase in suspicious messages and online scams in 2024. This was largely driven through SMS, email and phone calls, and was only exacerbated by advancements in AI.
Even at a time when we continue to see staggering increases in fraud and related losses — the Federal Trade Commission received more than 1.1 million reports of identity theft last year alone — businesses must do their best to walk a tightrope between robust security and effortless convenience. Over-index on either and you risk alienating customers — too few hoops and you lose their trust, too many and you lose their patience.
So, how do businesses strike this fragile balance and implement effective authentication solutions?
The customer is always right
When it comes to authentication, what businesses decree to employees rarely translates to customers. We transitioned to WebAuthn as the only form of 2FA for employee authentication, a company-wide mandate that took a few weeks. This ‘forced adoption’ works when your employees don’t have a choice, but your customers do.
Recently, I wanted to book a hotel for my family vacation, so I went to my favorite travel site, found the perfect room at a reasonable rate, and went to finalize the transaction. One problem: I kept running into an issue with CAPTCHA on their page — once, twice. After the third attempt I left, found the same room at the same rate on their competitor’s site, and booked.
Businesses can dedicate massive budgets to top-of-funnel marketing that drive customers to their websites, products and services, but if friction in the user experience pr …