Introduction

With digitisation, the use of customer authentication has grown exponentially. Various methods are being adopted by numerous entities for such authentication. Password and knowledge-based authentication is losing sheen day by day due to difficulty of remembering them. 2 Factor Authentication which as an improved version over the above also forces the user to keep his mobile handy and is also prone to spoofing attacks. 

Face Recognition has come a long way. It’s a great biometric, all thanks to the level of accuracy it has achieved in the last few years. Face Biometric can eliminate high-friction authentication methods like OTPs, CAPTCHAs easily. However, Face Recognition algorithms face a major problem of Face Spoofing. 

Face Spoofing is an attack where a fraudster uses a photograph of a target person - printed on high quality paper, 3D Silicone Mask or shown using a digital screen and tricks the recognition system. In order to be a reliable mode of authentication, a Face Biometric system should be able to distinguish between a genuine face and a fraud spoofing attack i.e a replica of a face.

Kartikeya, an ML engineer graduated in 2020 and took a job at a fintech company however, realised that it wasn’t his calling. On the other hand, he saw his father working for Indian Railways, where due to Covid, fingerprint scanner was difficult to use as an attendance system. That’s when Kartikeya thought that he had a solution to this. He tried making a Face Recognition Biometric system which his father found beneficial and decided to deploy it at work. This made him realise that it could be a feasible solution and therefore, resigned from his job to polish the product further. Soon, after deployment he saw someone marking attendance using a photograph, which gave him a new direction to create “SpoofSense” - an algorithm to recognise whether the face is genuine  or a Spoof Attack.

Market Opportunity

The Mobile Biometrics market is growing at a CAGR of 26% and will be valued at $74.5B by 2026. The Face authentication market will be valued at $17.5B by the same time. 

There are two types of Liveness checks, Active and Passive. Active check requires the user to blink eyes, turn head sideways, smile, etc which is being currently used at many places. Whereas, a Passive check requires no participation from the end-user other than clicking a selfie/short video. The outlook is bright for such Passive Face Liveness algorithms in India as well as overseas. With growing stress on digitalization in Asia, a huge market is coming up for Face Biometric Authentication in Banks, Fintech, Online Portals, Mobile Apps etc. 

100X Thesis

SpoofSense easily performs Face Liveness Check with just an API call. Images sent to the API are classified as either Live or Spoof. It is a plug and play integration where each face gets analysed by Multiple Deep Neural Nets and the liveness score is calculated based on a single frame passively.  It has a monthly/yearly subscription based Pricing Model. 

The product is a point solution with many use cases such as Remote customer onboarding, Video-KYC, Face Recognition Based Attendance/Access, Face Logins and verifying Digital profiles. 100X believes that this will be a critical part of any application in the future, as we make biometric/ face authentication a key part of any workflow/ app. Kartikeya has demonstrated the ability to build a differentiated product with an IP. 100X believes that SpoofSense has the opportunity to create a true deep tech cybersecurity company from India. 

Conclusion

Spoof attacks are increasing day by day due to various techniques being innovated by fraudsters. Fraudsters are now using Deep Fakes to authenticate genuine accounts. Hence, AI & Deep tech based systems which can identify such fraudsters and their spoof attacks are the need of the hour. Businesses are fighting hard to protect the interests of their customers. Password & Knowledge based authentication are going to be obsolete very soon and SpoofSense is here to fill the gap because of its unique nature to identify the spoof attacks behind the screen in a secret manner. Ultimately, one’s Face only will authenticate the Rightness and Realness of one’s identity. Face is going to be our ultimate identity in the future!