Passwordless authentication is the future, says Lucideus’s Saket Modi

Up to 28 dark web exposure opportunities for my ten year old Gmail ID – an embarrassing number has popped up on the Safe Me app.

Fortunately, most of the broken passwords were old, and back in the days when I was too carefree to understand the importance of two-factor authentication, the risks of reusing the same and probably predictable passwords, and memberships. reckless to applications that require you to register to give you basic information. Nonetheless, it was a much needed reality check that I needed.

I (guess) am not the only one who underestimates these risks. Cyber security awareness has grown, but multiple occasions for major corporate breaches and credential reports flooding the dark web reveal that there are plenty left. Can an app like Safe Me help raise awareness?

In case you didn’t know, Safe Me launched for Android and iOS users last week. Developed by cybersecurity company Lucideus, the app gives users information about the likelihood of a breach, dark web exposure, and an algorithm-based score on their security. The algorithm was developed as a joint research with MIT and leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The score is on a scale of zero to five, based on a combination of things like deep and dark web exposure, cybersecurity awareness, and device security, among others.

The brainchild of Saket Modi, a well-known name in cybersecurity, Safe Me aims to make people more aware of online privacy.

If you notice the SAFE Me app, you don’t need permission to see your photos, your locations, nothing. Because a lot of people are like – Oh if you give something away for free, you sell my data . So we decided not to take any permissions and sell your data, and consumers deserve something free in the truest sense. And by the way, SAFE Me doesn’t offer any form of ads, he said in an interview with Return Byte.

Modi also pointed to a change in user work habits and subsequent cyber risks in recent months.

We told ourselves that over the past 9 months, the line between personal and professional has almost disappeared. We both work from home, don’t we? You use the same laptop to share messages with friends and use the same laptop to write a story and submit it to your editor. Likewise, you use the same WhatsApp for your professional and personal work. We felt there was an intersection and the difference was dissolving very quickly. Therefore when we decided that we were going to launch an application that focuses on the human element of security we call the reengineering of cyber consciousness, he added.

As said before, the Safe Me app shows you information about exposure to the dark web. If your data is available on the dark web, there is nothing you can do to extract or delete it. Instead, users need to quickly change passwords and take other necessary actions.

If you ask, can I delete this data [from the dark web], the answer is no? Because now it has been copied to billions of places and no one can keep track . So what you can do with the deep and dark web exposure is pretty limited, other than the fact that you won’t be using it anywhere else, or changing the password, he said. Explain.

That said, Internet companies have also come to realize the stress of consumers remembering complicated passwords and the risks of re-using them. Already, we have seen efforts from Microsoft to create a password-less regime. However, the ecosystem is still in its infancy and can take years to mature.

Modi also agrees that the future is passwordless. But he warned that he might still need additional layers of security to keep cybercriminals at bay.

The future is passwordless where your passwords are not a phrase or a note you remember, but something unique like your fingerprint or retina, or your picture, etc. Of course, it can be. But that’s where you add multi-factor authentication where you get a code on your phone or use an authenticator app, he explained.