An upheaval called biometric authentication

A woman creates her biometric authentication profile. — Photo nld.com.vn

Compiled by Thu Trà

HÀ NỘI — It has been nearly a month since biometric authentication was implemented under the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s decision. However, many problems related to the authentication method and the emergence of new forms of fraud have caused significant concern.

The latest report from the SBV showed that after half a month of implementing biometrics, only two banks saw a biometric registration rate of over 20 per cent, and four other banks had a rate of over 10 per cent. Meanwhile, the remaining banks recorded a rate of less than 10 per cent.

Among them, Techcombank posted the highest rate of customers updating their biometric information at 25.96 per cent, equivalent to about 2.6 million customers. At the same time, more than 90 per cent of the bank’s customers who regularly had transactions over VNĐ10 million had proactively updated their biometric information.

However, to date, many people have not completed their biometric registrations.

In an online group with more than three million members, many people said they were not in a hurry to update their biometric information as they thought it was unnecessary.

Đoàn Quang from Nam Định Province is one of them. He said that as banks only required biometric authentication for transactions over VNĐ10 million per transaction and accumulated VNĐ20 million per day, he did not see biometric registration as essential.

Many others said they had encountered difficulties with biometric registration even though it had been deployed for many days.

Nguyễn Tân, who lives in HCM City, said he tried and failed to update his biometric registration on the banking app several times.

After going to the bank counter for support, Tân was informed that because he was using a new ID card, the system could not recognise it and he had to wait longer.

Meanwhile, Đoan Trang, who works in Hà Nội’s Hoàn Kiếm District, said that though she successfully made an online payment of over VNĐ10 million for an air ticket using face verification, she had to try several times due to system errors.

Trang said she found it inconvenient. Many of her friends had been struggling to transfer amounts over VNĐ10 million since the requirement for face authentication took effect.

Alongside these issues, many new forms of fraud have also appeared, increasing people’s concerns.

According to the latest report from Chongluadao.vn, the number of frauds and attacks totalled over 31,210 cases in the second quarter of this year, up seven per cent quarter-on-quarter. Notably, the number of fraud reports in June rose to 11,453, following a slight decrease in May.

The project representative said that the increase in fraud cases in June was related to the SBV’s decision on security solutions such as biometric authentication for online payments and bank cards. Fraudsters took advantage of the transition period to attack and exploit existing weaknesses.

Scams related to biometric authentication included impersonating bank employees to ask users to provide photos or make video calls to obtain information or encouraging users to install malware through fake links and applications.

Bank experts said biometric authentication aims to combat a surge in online fraud. However, there is no completely safe measure, and fraudsters always find ways to overcome technological barriers. Biometric authentication is an additional security solution, but the most important aspect is that individuals need to improve their awareness of self-protection.

Biometrics is not enough on its own

According to SBV Deputy Governor Phạm Tiến Dũng, when a new security measure is deployed, cybercriminals quickly adapt and develop new forms of fraud to overcome security barriers.

He told vietnamfinance.vn that this had happened over the decades, from simple password cracking to more complex security systems, such as two-factor authentication and biometric authentication.

However, there is a common misconception that fraudsters exploit the vulnerabilities of biometric technology. It is very difficult to fool biometric authentication systems. Fraudsters mainly take advantage of the difficulties people encounter during the authentication process to collect other personal information, serving criminal purposes, Dũng said.

He added that relying solely on biometric technology was not enough despite its advances. Organisations need to adopt a multi-layered security strategy that combines different authentication and security methods while continuously updating and improving protection systems, as well as enhancing user education and awareness of risks and prevention measures.

Only users can minimise risks and ensure the safety of their information and assets, Dũng noted.

Joshua Dwight from RMIT University Vietnam said that during the transition period, technical difficulties and the emergence of new forms of fraud were understandable and that users and organisations had to face them.

To mitigate these issues, banks need to not only invest in developing and deploying advanced technology solutions but also optimise processes to ensure the continuity and safety of banking services.

At the same time, they need to train employees to master and effectively use these new technologies to increase productivity and better meet the diverse needs of customers, he told the online newspaper.

He also advised users not to rely solely on security measures provided by banks or organisations, whether biometric or any other measure, to protect their assets.

Users should be well aware of potential risks and regularly improve their knowledge about personal information security, including using strong passwords, not sharing login information with others, and being vigilant against scams via emails, messages, or fake calls, he said.

22 Credit institutions successfully deploy VNeID for authentication

Twenty-two credit institutions and 13 payment intermediaries have successfully deployed the VNeID app for the authentication of payment account opening, payment transactions, and customer information verification, a conference held by the Ministry of Public Security and the State Bank of Vietnam on Tuesday in Hà Nội was told.

Among them, the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) is the first bank to successfully deploy VNeID with more than 600,000 account records.

There have been 276.3 million customer records collected for comparison of biometric information with chip-mounted citizen identification cards.

Stressing the importance of the Government’s project on developing an application for the population database, digital identification, and authentication for the national digital transformation from 2022-25 with a vision to 2030 (Project 06), the SBV Governor Nguyễn Thị Hồng said that banking is among the first industries to connect to the electronic identification and authentication system to deploy VNeID.

Hồng said that the banking sector has coordinated with the Police Department for Administrative Management of Social Order in cleaning the national population data and completed the development of an information system to serve State management in terms of money laundering prevention.

To date, six credit institutions have also completed the connection of social security accounts to banking accounts, which helps people receive subsidies from the Government more quickly. — VNS