Source: Bharosa
Bharosa, a provider of secure multifactor online authentication solutions, today announced a solution to authenticate users at the point at which they access highly sensitive digital check images online.
The new product, Bharosa CheckPad expands Bharosa's bundled suite of Virtual Authentication Devices, answering demand from financial institutions for Bharosa patent-pending technology applied to digital check image encryption.
Digital check images are becoming widely implemented in place of paper checks following the enactment of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, commonly known as the Check 21 legislation, in October 2004. While digitization creates check handling efficiencies for banks, since images lend themselves to rapid retrieval, transmittal and storage, these same advantages can also increase fraud risks. The highly sensitive contents of checks, including account numbers, check numbers and customer signatures, can more easily be obtained by fraudsters. And once revealed, information on an account's recent check activity and balances may be all a fraudster needs to begin writing counterfeit checks undetected by the financial institution.
Bharosa CheckPad checks this fraud before it happens by requiring strong, multifactor online authentication, both at login and during an online banking session when a user attempts to view an image of a paid check. Proprietary Bharosa technology also encrypts the actual check image displayed online, so it can not be easily read through any automated means, such as Spyware programs or Trojans. This is made possible through a number of unique and patent-pending Bharosa encryption methods.