New RSA® Adaptive Authentication for Phone Provides Financial Institutions with Cross-Channel Customer Protection

Leverages RSA’s proven risk-based authentication expertise and live voice biometrics technology

Automates and strengthens call center authentication to help financial institutions meet FFIEC guidance

Bedford, MA, Tuesday, October 24, 2006 — RSA, The Security Division of EMC (NYSE: EMC), today announced RSA® Adaptive Authentication for Phone. The product is designed to meet the financial industry’s need for strong, automated and convenient caller authentication for telephone banking, given the nature of fraud migration and the regulatory requirements stated in the FFIEC’s Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment guidance.

Designed with a focus on the end-user experience and strengthening phone authentication processes, RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone leverages the core concept and expertise used in RSA Adaptive Authentication for Web, currently used by more than 35 of the top 100 US financial institutions and some of the largest banks in Europe. The new solution also incorporates RSA’s voice biometric solution, based on the previously-acquired Vocent technology and integrated with the market-leading voiceprint engine from Nuance; the Vocent-Nuance solution is in production at several large banks in the United States today, with consumer-facing deployments planned for Q1 2007.

RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone provides multi-factor authentication for retail and commercial banking. The product is built to analyze various phone channel-specific risk parameters, from the phone number itself to a biometric voiceprint and user behavior profiles. The system is designed to then generate a comprehensive risk and authentication score for every call received and every high-risk transaction conducted. Low-risk transactions proceed uninterrupted while transactions with a high risk score are verified with an additional layer of security, such as secret questions. RSA’s field-tested approach of risk-based authentication is engineered to allow the vast majority of transactions to be successfully completed without interruption - providing enhanced security with minimal impact on the user experience.

RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone will leverage the Company’s in-depth expertise in risk-based authentication and fraud analytics. This will enable RSA to offer cross-channel protection by cross-referencing each phone-based transaction with the existing Web behavior profile for the individual involved - and leverage cross-institution fraud data via the RSA eFraudNetwork™ community.

“As we are strengthening security for the Web channel, phone banking is effectively becoming the next big target. Current phone authentication techniques are typically conducted semi-manually - they are susceptible to social engineering and are not secure enough, as acknowledged recently by the FFIEC,” said Christopher Young, vice president and general manager, Consumer Solutions at RSA, The Security Division of EMC. “The technology behind voice biometrics is improving rapidly, but our research shows that more is required to accurately and transparently authenticate millions of consumers. With that in mind, we have combined our proven risk-based authentication capabilities with voice biometrics to deliver a high quality, user friendly, secure solution. Our end-goal is to provide financial institutions with cross-channel protection to secure their customers’ remote financial transactions, regardless of the medium they choose to use.”

Financial institutions that deploy RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone will be able to join the RSA eFraudNetwork community, the world’s most effective anti-fraud network that helps protect hundreds of global financial institutions in real time. The eFraudNetwork community combines fraud data and positive fraudster profiles across RSA’s various solutions covering multiple lines of business at financial institutions of all sizes around the world. This cross-application, cross-institution and now cross-channel repository is an extremely effective counter-measure against financial fraud.

RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone is based on RSA’s voice biometric solution and leverages the market-leading voiceprint engine from Nuance. “RSA’s experience and expertise as a global security vendor along with Nuance’s technology leadership in speech processing combine to create an effective and credible solution for automated authentication for the phone channel,” said Lynda Kate Smith, general manager, Care Business Unit, Nuance. “We are excited about leading this emerging market with RSA as an expert partner.”

The RSA Adaptive Authentication for Phone solution is available today, with cross-channel functionality and other enhanced features to be generally available in the RSA Adaptive Authentication platform in 2007.
About RSA

RSA, The Security Division of EMC, is the expert in information-centric security, enabling the protection of information throughout its lifecycle. RSA enables customers to cost-effectively secure critical information assets and online identities wherever they live and at every step of the way, and manage security information and events to ease the burden of compliance.

RSA offers industry-leading solutions in identity assurance & access control, encryption & key management, compliance & security information management and fraud protection. These solutions bring trust to millions of user identities, the transactions that they perform, and the data that is generated. For more information, please visit www.RSA.com and www.EMC.com.


RSA and eFraudNetwork are either registered trademarks or trademarks of RSA Security Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. EMC is a registered trademark of EMC Corporation. All other products or services mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies.

Contact Information

Matt Buckley

Public Relations Manager

RSA Security Inc.

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