Energy companies have been in a constant game of leapfrog with hackers to secure information. A new concept, mobile identity, is making its way to market and potentially supplying them with a way to ensure that their employees and customers, and partners are who they claim they are when they log into utility systems.
Whenever a person tries to access a computer system, the first task is to determine if the person is a legitimate user. Often, they are not because hackers created a number of ruses to gain access to confidential information.
Energy companies want to be sure that intruders do not sneak past traditional checkpoints. However, legacy verification process challenges increased once the coronavirus pandemic hit. Utilities now need to find a way to validate employees, customers, and partners because traditional face-to-face measures are often no longer possible.
A New Way to Identify Oneself
Mobile identity relies on smartphone attributes to identify, verify, authenticate, and authorize users. Individuals increasingly rely on mobile devices to access websites and corporate applications. The emerging security system ties the person’s mobile phone number to their first name, last name, and address.
This identification process differs from traditional approaches in an important way. Mobile identities are designed to be highly secure because no personal or security data is stored locally. It is only processed during user verification, basically the sign in process.
Energy companies have struggled to ensure that outsiders are not able to access information stored in their data servers or the cloud. Theoretically, they gain more control over this onerous problem.
Mobile identities simplify the sign-up process, prevent password issues, and protect against fraud. As an added bonus, the steps to verify a mobile identity can be completed quickly, often in just a few seconds.
Challenges Abound
The emerging technology holds great promise but also faces a number of challenges. Smartphone suppliers need to deploy mobile identification technology. Currently, more than 6 billion of the world’s 8 billion individuals have a cell phone. However, a very small number, 322 million mobile identities, hold a mobile identity, according to ABI Research. But the technology is expected to take hold quickly: ABI expects 1.02 billion users to have mobile identities in 2027.
Energy companies need to understand how the technology functions and develop the requisite skills. They then need to roll the new capabilities out to their employees, customers, and partners and put checks in place to ensure that the new systems work as advertised.
Securing sensitive information has been challenging for energy companies. Smartphone ubiquity and the emergence of mobile identity offers a potential solution to this long-standing headache.