CONSUMERS across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region prefer stronger and user-friendly authentication methods, such as biometrics and passkeys, to secure their online accounts against the rise in phishing attacks in the region, according to a study.
“The persistently high password usage without [two-factor authentication] is a concern, highlighting how little consumers are offered alternatives like biometrics, resulting in lingering usage,” Andrew Shikiar, executive director at FIDO Alliance, said in a statement on Tuesday.
An online authentication barometer from the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Alliance showed that biometrics was the most secured and preferred authentication method among respondents.
The FIDO Alliance’s Online Authentication Barometer study covered 10,010 global consumers and was conducted by Sapio Research.
“Notably, Singapore leads this trend, with 35% of people indicating biometrics as the most secure and 41% selecting it as their most preferred method,” the study said.
It added that 58% of consumers have seen more online scams, with 56% thinking that such dubious messages have grown in sophistication with artificial intelligence (AI).
“The increased accessibility of generative AI tools is a likely driver of this rise in scams and phishing threats,” it said. “Tools like Fraud-GPT and WormGPT, which have been created and shared on the dark web explicitly for use in cybercrime, have made crafting compelling social engineering attacks far simpler, more sophisticated, and easier to do at scale.”
“With new AI tools that make phishing attacks even more convincing and widespread, it’s crucial for service providers in the Asia-Pacific region to pay attention,” Mr. Shikiar said. “Instead of sticking with old and unreliable methods like passwords and one-time codes, we need to start using stronger and simpler options like passkeys and on-device biometrics.”
Meanwhile, entering a password manually without additional authentication was the most used method across Asia Pacific, the study said.
On average, APAC consumers manually input a password four times a day or 1,200 times a year, the study said.
It also noted that 62% of APAC respondents are giving up on accessing services online and 45% are abandoning purchases due to forgetting their password for an 8% jump from last year.
“Globally, 70% of people have had to reset and recover passwords in the last two months because they’d forgotten them,” the study said.
“Poor online experiences are ultimately hitting businesses’ bottom lines and causing frustration among consumers.”
Passkeys have grown in consumer awareness (58%) from last year (41%) across APAC. Passkeys provide secure, convenient, non-phishable, and passwordless sign-ins to online services, it said.
Tech players such as Google, Apple, and PayPal are seeing opportunities in passkeys as they gear away from password and two-step verification, it added. — Miguel Hanz L. Antivola