Latest / Identity at the Center / #242 - Authenticate 2023: Passkeys with Pedro Martinez of Thales Group
Transcript
- 0:05This is identity at the center. If it has anything to do with
- 0:10IAM, this is the go to podcast now your hosts Jim McDonald and
- 0:17Jeff Stedman. Welcome to the Identity at the
- 0:23Center podcast. I'm Jeff and that's Jim.
- 0:24Hey, Jim. Hey, Jeff.
- 0:25How are you? Not so bad yourself.
- 0:27I'm doing great. You know, it's good.
- 0:29Again, we're at the Authenticate conference and it's a really
- 0:32cool conference. I mean you know it's not one of
- 0:35the really big conferences we go to like Gardner Eidner Verse or
- 0:39some of the vendor specific conferences.
- 0:42However, like you'll see signage that say MFA is so 80s.
- 0:48And I'm like, I feel like I'm still going around to my clients
- 0:51saying make sure you have MFAI mean, I know it's old, but it's
- 0:59kind of like I'm in between, right?
- 1:01Because you better have MFA. But at the same time, it's this
- 1:06passerless phenomenon. It's kind of like making it
- 1:10passe. Well, passkeys are having its
- 1:12moment in the sun right now, but at the end of the day you still
- 1:15need to have some factor additional to.
- 1:19Just a password, right? So MFAI think is still valid.
- 1:23Lots of companies out there have spent the last couple years
- 1:25investing in even just getting MFA off the ground, especially
- 1:28with, you know, the pandemic and people working from home and
- 1:31needing to do better authentication on that, which is
- 1:33great. MFA still has a place in the
- 1:35world. It's better than not having MFA.
- 1:38But clearly the future is shifting towards passkeys and
- 1:42Fido authentication. We've seen Google, Microsoft,
- 1:45Apple. Yeah, so I don't want to poo poo
- 1:52all over the MFA thing. It definitely feels like it's, I
- 1:56don't want to say legacy, but we're approaching that.
- 1:58It's kind of like, OK, SMS, right?
- 2:00That was top of the line 10 years ago.
- 2:02SMS is the best thing you can do now.
- 2:04It's not even recommended. Is it better than nothing?
- 2:06Yes, of course. But people aren't recommending
- 2:10that you start with SMS now, They're starting with, hey, you
- 2:13should be looking at pass keys for your.
- 2:17I also think there's a difference between enterprise I
- 2:19am and customer I am. I think that's probably the
- 2:24biggest dividing line because usually customer I am is focused
- 2:28on apps and and the web, whereas employee workforces.
- 2:36I mean it can be anything from legacy green screens to VPNs and
- 2:41and as well as you know apps that are either desktop apps or
- 2:46web enabled apps of all generations so.
- 2:49Those are different. They're captive audiences,
- 2:51right. I mean your employee, your your
- 2:54employer can say this is the way you're going to do that, right?
- 2:58And you don't have generally speaking much of A choice within
- 3:01those rails consumer side of things.
- 3:04It's. How easily can I get you to
- 3:06spend money with me, right, or give me data or whatever The
- 3:10thing is right? So of course you need to have a
- 3:13minimum threshold of security, but it is much more open to,
- 3:19hey, let's look at it easier ways.
- 3:21You know, the user experience is much more predominant now.
- 3:24I think that's changing, thankfully, but I think that's
- 3:27still sort of a general thrust between the two.
- 3:29Yeah, absolutely. So I think the pesky's are a big
- 3:32topic. You know how they fit into
- 3:34authentication, especially customer I am is something that
- 3:40we ought to explore And to that to that end we have a great
- 3:45guest today. Yeah.
- 3:46When you say explore, I think of the cowbell.
- 3:48Let's explore the space. Let's explore the space of task
- 3:51keys. Want to welcome to the show
- 3:53Pedro Martinez. He's a business owner for
- 3:55Digital Banking Authentication at Tallis Group.
- 3:57Welcome to the show, Pedro. Thank you very much.
- 4:00It's a pleasure. Yeah, Thanks for taking the time
- 4:01with us. One of the things that we like
- 4:03to do when we have someone on for the first time is to really
- 4:06kind of learn their identity origin story.
- 4:08How did you get into the world of identity access management?
- 4:12Is it something that you chose or did it choose you?
- 4:18No, basically 25 years ago I went to a job interview knowing
- 4:22very exactly where I was going and I found myself working into.
- 4:27And Identity and access company which at the time was called the
- 4:34Schlumberger and and has been evolving name over time to the
- 4:42point that today without having changed companies it's talents.
- 4:47So I didn't know at the at the end but it happened to be a.
- 4:51Very. A very lucky, I would say a very
- 4:55lucky situation because it put me in the right place at the
- 4:57right time because we are talking about this was 1998 when
- 5:02I joined. And all the sudden it turns out
- 5:06that this company that I interviewed for and they finally
- 5:08hired me, their main business was to manufacture smart cards,
- 5:13smart cards for either banking, so for payment cards at the time
- 5:18that we were starting with the transition from.
- 5:21Max drive towards cars with a chip and at the same time we
- 5:26were having the the big roll out worldwide of GSM technology with
- 5:32SIM cards and so you there was a point in the where where you
- 5:39essentially would be walking down the street and you will
- 5:41heat a stone and you would have a.
- 5:45A licence for a for a mobile operator popping out, popping
- 5:48out the floor. It was there were licences
- 5:50coming out all the time in each country around Europe and later
- 5:54on it was around here. So it was, it was a boom of
- 5:57telecom and and it was, it was a happy moment to get into that
- 6:01kind of market that all the way until now changing a lot over
- 6:05the years because that was very hardware centric at the time.
- 6:09Around cars, the manufacturing, the personalization it was, it
- 6:12was not just manufacturing cars. The the main, the main value
- 6:16that we were bringing was the fact that every single SIM card
- 6:20or banking card that was leaving our factory was personalized.
- 6:25It was charged with a specific unique credentials to be
- 6:29associated. So that was what was making.
- 6:31We were making millions, but each of one was coming out as a
- 6:35different product, already personalized from the factory at
- 6:38the time. So that evolved a lot and over
- 6:40time it, it turned more towards software and and back end
- 6:48services than the actual development.
- 6:51So today it's a mix. We still do SIM cards, we do
- 6:54banking cards, but we do a lot of back end solution, server
- 6:58solution, solutions for securing digital banking, digital
- 7:02payment, tokenisation. Etcetera, etcetera.
- 7:05So that that was it was purely by chance.
- 7:07I didn't know what I was getting into and am I 25 years late?
- 7:11That's how I feel like a lot of people in the space sort of just
- 7:14ended up in it. You have a title of business
- 7:18owner, at least I introduced you as business owner for digital
- 7:20banking authentication at Tallis Group.
- 7:23I got two questions. First question is what does
- 7:26business owner for digital banking authentication mean?
- 7:29You know, what do you do? And then tell us a little bit
- 7:31about Telus Group because I think it's it's a large company
- 7:34that people who prefer maybe people aren't familiar with
- 7:38bring us up to speed on that. So well, first of all business
- 7:43owner means that my role today is not technical.
- 7:46I have a responsibility which is worldwide.
- 7:50It's not a specific to a region and I I I basically I'm
- 7:55following all the. Opportunities that we have for
- 7:59business related to these type of solutions of authentication
- 8:03for digital banking with customers and with our sales
- 8:07teams around the world. I am not frontline, not normally
- 8:13with customers. I am.
- 8:16I am obviously our sales teams. Our sales teams are.
- 8:20I am called on occasion to to help, to assist, to have
- 8:23conversations and particularly with the topic of passkey that
- 8:26I've been exposed a lot over the last 1618 months.
- 8:31We have been very proactive in going and talking with customers
- 8:34and I have been and we wanted to gather as well a lot of feedback
- 8:37we were sharing with them what we knew and they were they were
- 8:41coming back. So business owner means that I
- 8:43follow the business not not at a deep technical, just following
- 8:48the opportunities and helping our.
- 8:50Our regional teams to to sell, to sell our stuff, yeah.
- 8:55And Telus Group is a French company.
- 8:56I didn't know much about Schlumberger, but I just
- 9:00pronunciation leads me to believe that was a French
- 9:03company. Well, nothing to do because they
- 9:07were completely different companies.
- 9:09I'll I'll just to as you as you mentioned Schlumberger,
- 9:12Schlumberger, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it well, I don't
- 9:15know if I but. The origin of that company is
- 9:18American, it was a couple of and the name of Lamborghinis
- 9:22probably is probably I think that it was to German or German
- 9:28origin brothers that the family name and it's a it's an American
- 9:33company Oilfield services as the main business.
- 9:36But they had a division that was working on something completely
- 9:40different and it was the business that I was talking
- 9:42about. Smart cars, smart cars,
- 9:45technology now. And that's what that's what I
- 9:47joined over time. There was a point where we, we
- 9:53went through an IPO and we became an independent company.
- 9:56Just this division, there's so, so much it continues to to work
- 10:01and do a lot of great business around all field services,
- 10:04engineering, services, very, very impressive.
- 10:07And we became an independent company under the name of
- 10:09Axalto. Then we merged with our first
- 10:12competitor which was, I'm talking about my my Origin that
- 10:17we merged with our main competitor.
- 10:19We became Gemalto at the time as a result of that and and we were
- 10:24the number one provider for, for all these kind of of products.
- 10:28So now Talas. And now Talas acquired us about
- 10:32five years ago. And Talius is a big is a big big
- 10:36company French multinational with working with divisions
- 10:41around aerospace, around defence and also around civil services.
- 10:48And we have joined as a as a as a division within Talius around
- 10:53cybersecurity. Our the name of our division is
- 10:59is is DIS Digital Identity and Security.
- 11:04And yeah, we we we bring that that aspect of for for security
- 11:10always with the aspect of security but very centre on on
- 11:13the digital life And so for those who are not very familiar
- 11:16are is supposed to be the work that you do in Europe.
- 11:21I'm sorry, are most of your customers in Europe?
- 11:24No, no, no, no. We we are.
- 11:27I mean, I if I talk, I. I'm going to talk about the DIS,
- 11:32the digital identity and security.
- 11:34We are a very multinational, very multinational company.
- 11:37Even the part that related to Gemalto, remember that we were,
- 11:42we were, we were working with banks and with telcos and with
- 11:45governments, because I talk about banking cards and SIM
- 11:48cards, but we also were were providing electronic passports
- 11:53and electronic IDs, for example, as well as equipment for reading
- 11:57them. To to governments, to telcos, to
- 12:02banks. All around the world, All around
- 12:04the world. We are.
- 12:05So you're working with like some really large clients and this
- 12:11idea of passwordless. I mean we've relied on the
- 12:15password for so long and I've heard you make the statement
- 12:18passkeys will replace the password.
- 12:21I'm wondering why you say that and what kind of reaction you
- 12:25get when you say that to these big organisations that you work
- 12:29with. So that's that's that's actually
- 12:33it. It it all started well, it all
- 12:35started last year. We have been working, we have
- 12:38been members of the Fido alliance since very early on.
- 12:43We are board members and we have been participating actively
- 12:47leading leading WAR groups. We have contributing to it and
- 12:51we have been building products and certifying our own products
- 12:54as as Fido products. But it is a technology that we.
- 12:57Always consider that he had promise and we were following
- 13:00and we were coming with products.
- 13:01But it was last year in May when Apple, Google and Microsoft did
- 13:09something that to my knowledge, because I haven't been able to
- 13:12find any president of that, did something unique, which was to
- 13:17issue a joint PR. The three of them.
- 13:21That was the moment where we said, OK, this is even bigger
- 13:25than. We thought it would be, it was
- 13:29we, we we really saw that this was going.
- 13:32We knew that everybody had been working and had been doing all
- 13:35the plumbing that would be necessary for this technology to
- 13:38succeed. But sometimes that's not enough.
- 13:41No. But when we saw that level of
- 13:43commitment and that level of commitment from the three of
- 13:46them, we said OK, well, so here there is something big that is
- 13:49going is, is, is really going to happen and we decided that we
- 13:52needed to. Start to evangelise a little bit
- 13:56to take the opportunity. It was, it was, it was not the
- 14:00time yet to take an action from from customers last year.
- 14:05But it was an opportunity for us to go see our own customers and
- 14:11and share information with them that we believe they would find
- 14:15valuable because what we were convinced is that they weren't,
- 14:18they didn't know what was coming.
- 14:20So even if there was this announcement.
- 14:25People was not processing visa. What is irrational at the time
- 14:29you read? Sorry, it sounded irrational
- 14:31because you if you haven't had time to observe the idea.
- 14:35Yeah, or or or you just don't, you know, I mean, we have been
- 14:38depending on passwords for as long as there is Internet.
- 14:43It has come to a point and nobody likes them.
- 14:46Nobody, Neither the service providers nor the end users.
- 14:50Nobody likes to use passwords. And yet we have come to accept
- 14:55that it is what it is. It's always been like this.
- 14:58It gets to a point, except everybody that is working here
- 15:01on a solution. Everybody that is out of this
- 15:03bubble. It has come to a point that they
- 15:06just accept that they have to manage 50 or 60 or 7 different
- 15:09passwords, that every time that they are going to a login that
- 15:12they have not visited in three or four months there a standard
- 15:15login user experience is going to be going through the password
- 15:18recovery mechanism. We have come to accept all that
- 15:21as as just the way things are, no and and even even our
- 15:26interfaces in companies. Anyway, we we thought that we
- 15:29needed to go on, we needed to to share information and to see the
- 15:32reaction as well. And and we started to go out and
- 15:37we started to plan our most beloved customers and and and to
- 15:41see them. And when we started to do these
- 15:43meetings indeed we we said we want to grab their attention and
- 15:48we are going to start by by by by poking a little bit and and I
- 15:55will start with a slide that was saying flat out and this is
- 15:59going at customers that I don't normally see.
- 16:00It's not like they know me. I mean, they they just see.
- 16:03A weird guy that is coming with her with her with her the the
- 16:07typical contact which is the salesperson for that account or
- 16:10or anyway and and and and along comes these these weird guy you
- 16:15know and and he sits in the room and and he comes out and comes
- 16:18out with a slide and start by saying passkeys are going to
- 16:23kill password. It is inevitable, and it's going
- 16:26to happen fast. And the reaction was as
- 16:30expected. You could, you could see it.
- 16:32I mean you would be in the room and maybe there were 5-6 people
- 16:35depending on on the gathering and the customer and all the
- 16:38sudden you would see a one guy typically security architect or
- 16:42so that would lean back on the chair and cross there and cross
- 16:45there. They didn't have to.
- 16:48Say anything. It was the body language.
- 16:49Yeah, yeah. They didn't say anything.
- 16:51No, but. But that was somehow intended.
- 16:54It's a way to be you. It was creating a little bit of
- 16:57attention and then and then from there you you want.
- 17:01I wanted them no to to challenge that that statement.
- 17:05But when you go through it, the question was, OK, I understand
- 17:09you who you don't believe. Why would you believe it?
- 17:11I mean you have always seen these and it has never, it has
- 17:13never happened. When you go through that and you
- 17:16start to explain them that, well then I was explaining why are
- 17:20they why it is inevitable that this is going to happen.
- 17:23And then I was starting with the lamest argument possible.
- 17:26Which was to tell them because they are great and they were
- 17:30kind of kind of laughing well, but they are great.
- 17:33Let's see. They are really great because
- 17:34they are clearly providing, compared to passwords, they are
- 17:38clearly providing a much better user experience.
- 17:42And you could expect rolling their eyes, yeah, the better
- 17:45user experience, OK. They provide a much better
- 17:49security and you can get into actions and you can start to
- 17:52talk there about they cannot be fished.
- 17:55They cannot be subject to a massive data leaks that begins
- 17:59to touch ground because they have seen them.
- 18:03Either they have suffered them themselves or they have seen
- 18:06nearby bombs dropping to them. And then you can tell them I
- 18:10need and and as a third argument of why they are great because
- 18:13they can reduce your cost very significantly.
- 18:17The cost of the password research represent one of the
- 18:21biggest 'cause that you have related to customer care, so
- 18:24that is quantifiable. OK, they are great, but that is
- 18:27not enough. What is the second big reason
- 18:30why it's inevitable is because and that's where where you you
- 18:35come out with APR and you say look at the level of
- 18:38commitments. This is something unprecedented,
- 18:41these guys, Microsoft, Google, Apple and the industry behind
- 18:47them, because the Fido alliance with everything that comes
- 18:50behind these guys have declared publicly.
- 18:54That they are committed to end with passwords.
- 18:57This begins to be this begins to be something you've got to think
- 19:02if all of your Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon services start
- 19:08using passkeys. It becomes ubiquitous.
- 19:10Everybody gets used to doing it. Who's listening to this podcast?
- 19:14Who isn't used to doing MFA? Because at one point in time,
- 19:18that was almost unheard of. They're going to send me a
- 19:22message to my phone and I've got to enter that.
- 19:25You know, it was, it was new. Well, now everybody gets it.
- 19:29You see that pop up? Check your phone for message or
- 19:33for a one time password, etcetera.
- 19:35The same thing's going to happen with passkeys, right?
- 19:39Yeah we are going to get used because we are going to see it.
- 19:42But but there are two two aspects and this sometimes is it
- 19:45it gets especially talking and that's what a different you you
- 19:48said Microsoft, Google, Apple and Amazon.
- 19:53Obviously they are big must as as service providers but we have
- 19:57to make the difference with Microsoft, Google and Apple
- 19:59because the other reason that brings to say that this is
- 20:02inevitable is that day three they hold the platforms for all
- 20:08the. End user communication devices,
- 20:11whether they are computers, tablets or or or phones that we
- 20:17all use, you have there practically 100% of the market.
- 20:21And if they three are telling we are going to make this happen we
- 20:25are going to do everything that is necessary at the level of our
- 20:28devices and at the level of the operating systems for this to be
- 20:32enabled. That is a big thing and indeed
- 20:34they did the announcement that announcement that told us wait
- 20:37this is going to happen and over the next that was the 5th of May
- 20:40actually that's password they of 2022 and over the 5-6 months
- 20:47that followed they they they were true to their to their
- 20:51commitment because by the end of 2022 you had you had you had
- 20:58Windows, you had you had Android, you had iOS you had Mac
- 21:04OS equipped for passkeys natively.
- 21:09Yeah, all along. So you're drawing the
- 21:12distinction on Google, Microsoft, because they have the
- 21:15devices. Next level down might be Amazon,
- 21:19eBay, TikTok, you know, does anybody not think this is going
- 21:25to happen? Is anybody thinking this is not
- 21:29going to happen? Well, it depends.
- 21:32I mean if you, if you think well, OK, so so there is, there
- 21:37is, there is, there is banks, there is certain industries and
- 21:42in particular the banking industry that because that was
- 21:46the second part of the conversation that we were having
- 21:48at that table with those with those customers, no, even with,
- 21:52with with the person that was leaning back on the table.
- 21:56The first part of the conversation was to tell them
- 21:58this is going to happen, this technology is going to thrive.
- 22:01The second part of the conversation was, well, is this
- 22:06fitting well for financial institutions?
- 22:08And there things were getting complicated.
- 22:11And in part, besides sharing information with them, we also
- 22:15wanted to get their feedback to see how they see it, because at
- 22:17the beginning there was quite some, quite some, quite some
- 22:20doubts. Why is that?
- 22:22At the same time that Google, Apple and Microsoft said we are
- 22:25going to we are going to enable this technology and make it
- 22:29natively, they also came out with a notion of synchronisation
- 22:34of of pass keys. All the work that had been done
- 22:37at the Fido Alliance to build the pass keys was always under
- 22:42the consideration that a passkey was bound to a device.
- 22:48Passkey is created on one device, you create that
- 22:51credential and that credential. Once it is created it it creates
- 22:55a unique link between a service provider, a user and and then a
- 23:00specific device and so it becomes a possession factor, a
- 23:06possession factor for a multi factor authentication.
- 23:12However, the moment that you enable synchronisation, which is
- 23:15great from for for more than one reason for one side because it
- 23:20simplifies the user experience, you don't need to create a
- 23:23passkey for every single device that you have.
- 23:26You can just create one passkey on one device.
- 23:30And if you have multiple devices on the same my myself, I I use
- 23:35Apple devices. I've got to say, I have a Mac, I
- 23:37have a tablet, I have a. Fanboy.
- 23:41You're a fanboy. Well done.
- 23:42Hey, it. Works and they're good.
- 23:43Device I like we all, we all, we all have our.
- 23:46He said he stares at his back book.
- 23:49Anyway, The the The thing is that it's great.
- 23:52I mean that's synchronisation, it simplifies life and it also
- 23:55solves an an everlasting issue related to a strong
- 23:58authentication which is the which is account recovery.
- 24:01You know if you lose your device then you need to again verify
- 24:05your identity in order to create on a new device etcetera
- 24:09etcetera. Having this backup, this is
- 24:10fantastic, but you have lost the notion of device binding that
- 24:18when you create a passkey. I create it on one device on my
- 24:22iPhone, but all the sudden that I that passkey is going to flow
- 24:27through iCloud and end up available on my iPad and on my
- 24:32MacBook. Well, it's difficult to claim
- 24:36that that that is a a possession of it's proving it's it's it the
- 24:40possession factor. It's proving possession of what?
- 24:43At most, it's proving possession or control.
- 24:46It's really that I have control of my iCloud account, but not of
- 24:50which. Goes back to password which goes
- 24:53back to password. So, so in in that was something
- 24:56and as we started discussing with with our banks we're
- 24:59telling this is going to come, this is something that is
- 25:01arriving but but what is, what is going to be your position of
- 25:05that? We're talking about the
- 25:05second-half of 2022. We're having these conversations
- 25:08and some were surprised and were saying no, no, this doesn't
- 25:11happen some and we were trying to form our own opinion and
- 25:15there were discussings into the Fido alliance as well.
- 25:18No, in the end, in the end we scratched our head a little bit
- 25:26for a while. But over time as we had more and
- 25:29more interviews and we mature our own position it it is not
- 25:32that that complicated as that at least in our in our view.
- 25:38We think because there is there is any bank that today is using
- 25:48passwords even if it's partially because they require something
- 25:52more than passwords to meet regulation.
- 25:56But if they are using passwords as part of their authentication
- 26:01policy, there is in our view, there is absolutely no doubt
- 26:08that they should jump at the possibility of replacing those
- 26:12passwords for sync passkies, for the passkies, even if they are
- 26:18synced. Sometimes when we were having
- 26:20this conversation, a customer would say no, no, but but no.
- 26:26I mean this is how, how are we going to accept that the
- 26:30credential, because the credential is ours, is between
- 26:32me, the bank and my customer. How am I going to accept that
- 26:37this credential that is mine now it's going to go on flow to an
- 26:41iCloud or to a Google password manager and they would have to
- 26:44tell them And how is this different to what happens today
- 26:47already with passwords you have no control and that is already
- 26:50happening because because today when a user is going to a
- 26:54website on any of these if I go to my iPhone and I'm trying to
- 26:58log in into into a certain account, I can I can choose to
- 27:04to to save it into my kitchen. So that is already happening
- 27:08with your credentials today. So you cannot consider that
- 27:10there is a loss because that's already happening to you.
- 27:14So don't don't look at it, don't compare pass keys with your
- 27:19strong authentication solution. But are you using passwords as
- 27:23part of your of your authentication policy at all?
- 27:27If so, it's a no brainer. Replace as fast as you can those
- 27:33passwords for pass keys and if you have a solution for a strong
- 27:38authenticating OTP or whatever, whatever the solution it is that
- 27:42you to meet compliance combined with those passkeys.
- 27:46OK, it continues to work. You don't need to make any any
- 27:49effort with that. You can do low assurance
- 27:52authentication if you want through passkeys instead of
- 27:55passwords. And then when you need to step
- 27:57up because you want to sign a transaction, you want to make a
- 28:01payment and and you need to do a higher authentication, apply
- 28:07whatever you have as as as already as a stronger think
- 28:11litigation mechanism and that works.
- 28:13And over time what can happen that's going to be very easy to
- 28:16implement because you just need to connect a back end and to do
- 28:22a very minor standard modification into your web
- 28:25services. No, just implement web often so
- 28:30that you can be calling on passkis.
- 28:31You don't need to do anything on the client side because the the
- 28:36OS of the devices of the end users are already are are
- 28:38already taking their. So it's super easy to add
- 28:42passkey support to your web services and all the sudden you
- 28:45will see how customers start doing less passwords and more
- 28:49passkis and the more passkis they do and less passwords
- 28:52that's risk that you are removing, risk of phishing that
- 28:55you are removing. It's it's it's only benefits
- 28:58that you have from the on that side.
- 29:00And if you do just that you are doing yourself a favour later on
- 29:05you can consider, well, I mean right now I'm having an
- 29:09infrastructure for authentication of passkis based
- 29:11on Fido and then I have another infrastructure in place for
- 29:16legacy. Legacy for a strong
- 29:18authentication. You can say, well actually I
- 29:21don't need 2 infrastructures because I can use the fighter
- 29:25infrastructure as well to do to do authentication.
- 29:32That is 2 factor and that is acceptable from a compliance to
- 29:37regulation standpoint. How can you do that using the
- 29:40same back end, the same fighter back end that you have for basic
- 29:43passkeys? Now you can reuse it if you
- 29:45want. If you want to to remove the
- 29:47old, the old infrastructure that you have for OTP, how well
- 29:53ensuring that pass keys don't don't synchronise.
- 29:57Now you were saying before that end users you you can't control
- 30:04them in a in AB to C environment, you cannot control
- 30:06them, you don't know which platforms they are using.
- 30:08So as far as there is one platform that is applying
- 30:12systematically synchronisation, well, those those you cannot.
- 30:17Consider that you have a solution that fulfils all your
- 30:20users like that. So you cannot count on the pass
- 30:24keys that are managed by the platforms as your solution for
- 30:27authentication. But you can implement Fido, you
- 30:31can implement Fido and you can manage pass keys through other
- 30:35means, for example through an SDK.
- 30:38You can integrate A Fider functionality on your mobile app
- 30:42as they do today in in many cases.
- 30:44So the bank can use their own mobile app to they can add the
- 30:50fider functionality into the mobile apps.
- 30:54How important is that control for an organization to own that
- 30:59portion of the authentication? So we talked about the platforms
- 31:03owning quite a bit of it right now, Google, Microsoft, Apple,
- 31:06but you just mentioned. A financial institution for
- 31:09example wanting to incorporate the authentication into their
- 31:13app in your in your dealings with that industry.
- 31:17How important is that control where they want to have that it
- 31:20is, it is. It is very important, I think
- 31:23that they don't. They suddenly they don't want to
- 31:25relinquish financial institutions in general of at
- 31:30least of a of a medium sized to large size.
- 31:33They they say these are my customers when it comes to their
- 31:38to their service. These are my customers.
- 31:40These are my credentials. This is a direct relationship
- 31:42between between us. I have to be the master of of
- 31:46that relationship and they. Want to only in full
- 31:48authentication experience as much as they can anyway.
- 31:52Yes, there are, I mean there are, there are in in most cases
- 31:55that's the case. There are some regional cases,
- 31:58there are some initiatives and we have some some very
- 32:00interesting presentations that are there are some, some small
- 32:03polls. For example in the Nordics, in
- 32:05Northern Europe, there has been an initiative actually where
- 32:08banks came together. There is a consortium of
- 32:12entities that came together and created an entity to manage
- 32:15identities which is which is called Bank ID.
- 32:17The same concern that banks had with identity of the service,
- 32:23you know, 10-15 years ago was like, oh, I can't put my
- 32:27credentials up in the cloud. I need to have them on Prem and
- 32:32control them. You know, the thing that I think
- 32:35where you're getting with the argument of passkeys versus
- 32:39passwords is people can use their iCloud to sync their
- 32:46keychain, which is basically just the password.
- 32:49But your password could also end up in some kind of password file
- 32:54out on the the dark web, and it can be used by anybody but the.
- 33:00The passkey can't because it's cryptographically signed and
- 33:06it's not something that could end up in some kind of dark web
- 33:09dump pass keys. So that is a risk that you
- 33:12completely remove from the table.
- 33:14Because pass keys are based on a symmetric cryptography, the fact
- 33:20that they are based on a asymmetric cryptography.
- 33:23What it means is that what you are going to be storing on the
- 33:26server side, you need to have something on the server side.
- 33:29But it's not the entire key, it's just half of the key.
- 33:34So even if that would be if that server would be compromised and
- 33:38those keys would be stolen, that on itself doesn't allow to
- 33:41recover to recover all the. It doesn't break the security of
- 33:47of that of that credential. So that is one of the massive
- 33:51arguments why a a a bank or any service provider for that matter
- 33:57that today is using passwords for authentication.
- 34:00They may want to they may want to move away from them as soon
- 34:04as possible into this because the the the question about the
- 34:07data leaks it's I mean there is the finance the direct financial
- 34:11loss but there is the the branding the branding laws is is
- 34:16it's and it's a nightmare so so that on that on itself is is
- 34:20quite a motivation. So folks, for folks who are
- 34:23listening, it's 25 after three on Tuesday, you're going to be
- 34:28presenting in like 25 minutes. So, one hour, yeah.
- 34:32And one hour. OK.
- 34:33We really appreciate you talking through this with us, but we
- 34:37don't want to hold you back from that.
- 34:39You need a little bit of time to catch your breath, maybe have
- 34:42coffee or something. But thank you, Pedro.
- 34:45I mean, this is really educational.
- 34:48My pleasure anytime. Yeah, so let's end on a lighter
- 34:51note here so you can get off and go and prepare and and psych
- 34:54yourself up. We were talking before we hit
- 34:58the record button that you're a soccer dad, you've got a couple
- 35:02of sons. I think you said that are
- 35:04playing soccer. Then the then the conversation
- 35:06turned a little bit towards Messi, who has become a
- 35:09phenomenon. He's already been a phenomenon
- 35:10around the world, but. Unless you've been a die hard
- 35:14soccer player, you probably just kind of were maybe passing
- 35:17familiar. Now he's playing for Miami and
- 35:20Florida of your soccer dad duties.
- 35:26How do you see your sons and their journeys through the
- 35:31sport? Are we are we looking at maybe
- 35:34the next Messi somewhere in there or a different position?
- 35:36No, no, no. We're we're, I mean still too
- 35:39soon they will, they will do. They will do whatever they they
- 35:42want. But for us it's just a matter of
- 35:44keeping them healthy and and doing a team sport and and
- 35:48getting into that. But to me what it it the only
- 35:52thing is that now they playing soccer and then watching soccer
- 35:55and then playing soccer because you have the the equivalent of
- 35:58the NFL games. It's all soccer all the time.
- 36:02All it's intensive but it's true that we were by tradition in the
- 36:07family fans of Barcelona and now to and we had Messi.
- 36:13We had the lack of have this guy in in in our team.
- 36:16And to see the impact that now he's having in a country that
- 36:19doesn't have the tradition of it's.
- 36:22It's funny to see the the kind of craze that he's generating in
- 36:24a country, in a country that that traditionally didn't pay as
- 36:28much attention to to soccer and as as it was before.
- 36:32So does that give a sense of? Pride when you see that
- 36:35happening. Or is it a sense of loss because
- 36:38he used to play? No, no, I'm.
- 36:40I'm really happy for the guy because it's, you know, there
- 36:43are great sports guys that are that are just great at at what
- 36:49they do, but as a person, you don't.
- 36:51You don't. I mean, he doesn't, he doesn't.
- 36:54I mean they are too fond of themselves or they they don't
- 36:58and you don't You don't see them as a role, as a role model for
- 37:00example for your kids and this is a guy that has been it's he's
- 37:04great in what he does. He's exceptional about any kind
- 37:07of measure and he's a very humble very reasonable very
- 37:10nice. He doesn't has outbursts or
- 37:12anything like that and he he won the World Cup after have been
- 37:16chasing it for many years in the late stages of his career.
- 37:19And now to see him the kind of things he's doing, every time
- 37:22that he does something that is remarkable, we we just get a
- 37:25smile. No it's it's it's it's it's
- 37:29happy to see him to see to see him thrive and to see the kids
- 37:33obsessed with him as well. So the Barcelona?
- 37:35Fans, Are they Florida MLS fans at this point?
- 37:39Or Miami, I should say. Or you follow a player versus
- 37:43A-Team? No, no, I would say that people
- 37:46have sympathy for the for people from Barcelona have sympathy for
- 37:49Miami now because Messi is in there.
- 37:52And not only Messi mean, there were a couple of players, X bars
- 37:55of players that went along as well.
- 37:57So now now I it's a very rare thing to see because there was
- 38:01no interest whatsoever in Spain about MLS here.
- 38:05And then now you can have a conversation of what did Miami
- 38:09last week which was unheard of before.
- 38:12So it's amazing when a transcendent.
- 38:13Player can do that or anything. Can see that occasionally with
- 38:16maybe basketball player coming from some area of the world
- 38:19right into. One league or another or
- 38:22baseball was another one, which I know, Jim, you were just
- 38:24chomping at the bit to to get into that one.
- 38:26So I. Was in a conversation with
- 38:29Denise and one of her friends and she sent a picture of a guy
- 38:33that she's dating her her friend.
- 38:36And she said I was like, he looks like somebody famous.
- 38:39She's like, yeah, he looks like Victoria Beckham's husband.
- 38:46David Beckham? No, she.
- 38:48Said it right the the spice. Spice Girl, Right.
- 38:52She was a Spice Girl, yeah. Anyway, but he.
- 38:54Came over and played in the MLS for a while, but I think it was
- 38:59more of like, you know, it got some attention.
- 39:02But from what I understand now, Messi's over here.
- 39:05Just like dominating, right? Which that's kind of cool.
- 39:09I mean my Uber driver from the airport to the resort here.
- 39:15He's like, do you want to listen to something or watch something?
- 39:17I'm like, I don't care. And So what do you, what does he
- 39:21put on? He puts on like this highlight
- 39:23reel of messy, just scoring goals and winning championships
- 39:27and stuff. And it was probably still
- 39:28playing. After the 40, Yeah, he was.
- 39:31Still going he's. Probably watched it hundreds.
- 39:34Of times I guess. But yeah, I it's I used.
- 39:37To play soccer when I was a kid and it's interesting see how MLS
- 39:40has gotten. Progressively more popular over
- 39:44the years. I mean it's still very much not
- 39:47anywhere near you know NFLNBA, you know at hockey, baseball and
- 39:53then you've got sort of MLSI think it's kind of after that.
- 39:56But there was a just a genuine excitement when you, you know, a
- 40:00player of that caliber comes over.
- 40:03I was, I was concerned and he's OK.
- 40:06He's going to come over. He's towards the end of his
- 40:08career. What does that mean?
- 40:10He's not going to be able to produce whatever guy comes out,
- 40:13scores, goals left. I mean, he delivered right away
- 40:17and it was like this shot of adrenaline that went through
- 40:21MLS. It was the worst.
- 40:23Team in the MLS this season the guy arrived and he played six,
- 40:27seven matches and he won a title for them just to straight up it
- 40:31was. I mean, they were expecting him
- 40:33to make an impact, but they no one was expecting that he would
- 40:36do that. Right off the bat, as he arrived
- 40:38to them, it was, it was funny to.
- 40:40It was funny to watch. It was funny to watch.
- 40:42A real Cinderella, a Cinderella story.
- 40:44We're going to go ahead and wrap it up for this conversation.
- 40:47Thank you so much for taking the time.
- 40:48My pleasure. I think we'll be recording
- 40:51another episode when you're on stage, so we'll be simpatico
- 40:53with you thinking about that. But it was great to meet you,
- 40:57Great to have this conversation. I'll have some links in our show
- 41:01notes so that people connect with you on LinkedIn if they
- 41:03have any questions. So I have a link to the Telus
- 41:05group as well so people can find out more about what goes on over
- 41:09there. We'll have links to myself and
- 41:11Jim on LinkedIn as well. We're on the web.
- 41:13idacpodcast.com we're on Twitter slash X slash whatever it's
- 41:19called. By the time you listen to this
- 41:20at IDAC Podcast Mastodon at IDAC podcast at infosec dot exchange
- 41:26Like, subscribe, share with a friend, share with an enemy, I
- 41:30don't care. As long as people are listening,
- 41:31we'll keep doing this. Thanks to everyone for listening
- 41:34and we'll talk with everyone in the next one.