In the past two weeks, the world has continued to witness the unprecedented pressure of COVID-19 in shaping our industries. The internet also faced a mass scale Twitter hack, making headlines across the country. Let’s take a look at some of the top industry news this week:
Top Headlines
- Twitter hacked, compromising the accounts of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, and other top figures
- Even with two-factor authentication, hackers were still able to take control of Twitter’s verified account to spread a bitcoin scam
- Why Bitcoin?
- It’s pseudonymous; it’s peer-to-peer nature means that a middle man like a law enforcement officer can’t interject easily
- However, clues have probably been left on the blockchain as to the identities of the attackers, making it still possible to trace the attackers
This Week in Digital Payment
- Industries seek to automate the KYC process
- In the financial industry, small to medium-sized banks face financial struggles and must rely on technology to free up human resources
- In the context of the pandemic, AI is relied on more heavily than ever before to speed up the loan approval process, diagnosis in hospitals, etc.
- eKYC is becoming more and more popular, as KYC needs to be done faster than ever and human resources require comparatively higher costs than tech
- Used by over 1.6 million citizens
- Citizens can now authenticate themselves without passwords -- all they need is the SingPass app and a mobile device that can scan QR codes.
- One such company is TrueReview, which integrates the immutability of blockchain with biometric authentication, to ensure that only real users -- not bots -- can leave reviews on platforms like Amazon
- Proof of concept developed for blockchain-based mobile payment system, led by Japan’s SoftBank
- Will enable blockchain to be use at scale, with consumer-facing services
This Week in Digital Identity
- Allows users to replace their physical IDs with their device
- The sign up process is end-to-end encrypted
- The technology is compliant with government regulations of the EU and German government
- The Secure Element chip within the phone is able to block hackers that are trying to access the phone from remote locations, and is optimized to protect sensitive data
- COVID-19 has spurred the mass adoption of online communication and business
- This has increased the demand for secure digital identities
- Companies with stronger digital identity ecosystems are able to thrive, and this is a trend that will continue to the future
- More information on this trend can be found here
- In an effort to combat medical record theft on the dark web, Jumio partners with PMNTS to create a Digital Identity Tracker.
- The rise of telemedicine means a greater need for secure “know your patient” verifications.
- As UBI wallet company GoodDollar says, one of their main challenges is digital identity authentication.
- Investing $48 billion in the next “tech revolution”, which includes blockchain, 5G, and AI
- The digital ID will be a blockchain-based mobile ID card
