BlackBerry outs Persona ‘continuous authentication’ AI tool
Built on the BlackBerry Spark platform, the company claims Persona Desktop is the first cybersecurity solution to leverage biometric and behaviour-based machine learning models to create a real-time trust score for laptop and desktop users.
It aims to protect employees whose logins have been stolen, protect companies against rogue employees and protect staff and organisations against compromised software.
Persona continually monitors behaviour and device interaction, creating a user profile and taking action when usage patterns deviate from the norm. The software can then prompt for further authentication or disable access to a device.
Frank Cotter, senior vice president of product management at BlackBerry, said, “For organisations that are adopting a zero trust model, BlackBerry Persona removes the friction of unnecessary re-authentication by continuously verifying a user’s identity after log-in. With continuous authentication, BlackBerry Persona uses behaviour analysis to recognise software usage patterns and determine what behaviour is high or low risk in real time. We are committed to developing innovative ways to keep our customers safe and secure and are proud to be the first to bring a solution like Persona Desktop to market.”
"Building authentication into the endpoint places a strong cybersecurity control at a critical control point; it’s a no brainer!”
Frank Dickson, program vice president of cybersecurity products at IDC, said, “It has long been a puzzle why we place sophisticated endpoint security platforms on devices but allowed a simple username and password to easily bypass that protection. We have long advocated for embedded user authentication while not impacting user experience, applying modern technology to continually validate a user. Building authentication into the endpoint places a strong cybersecurity control at a critical control point; it’s a no brainer!”
Nigel Thompson, VP product marketing at BlackBerry, told Technology Magazine, “BlackBerry Persona is built to deliver AI-driven continuous authentication and behaviour analytic solution that is able to identify suspicious users in real-time to prevent security breaches.” Asked if the technology could be fooled by erratic user behaviour, he said, “No. Erratic user behaviour would simply trigger a secondary action such as a two factor authentication request.”
BlackBerry Persona Desktop is available as part of BlackBerry Cyber Suite.
