Fraud & Identity Featured Article

Blue Cedar Employs Apple's Face ID

By Paula Bernier Executive Editor, TMC

Apple’s new iPhone (News - Alert) X allows smartphone owners to employ facial recognition to unlock these devices. That technology is called Apple’s Face ID. And this week Blue Cedar announced this same technology can be used to allow iPhone X users to securely log into the apps it supports.

Blue Cedar is a mobile security company. It has been offering fingerprint access to apps via application programming interfaces in Apple’s (News - Alert) iOS mobile operating system. And now, the company explains, it also offers Face ID support via those APIs for any app on supported hardware through its code injection technology.

“We’re excited to offer the innovative capability of integrating Face ID authentication into any app secured by Blue Cedar’s technology, without the need for any code changes by developers,” said Kevin Fox, co-founder and CTO at Blue Cedar. “Our configurable Local App Authentication policy now allows any enterprise mobile app to be unlocked with the same ease and convenience that iPhone X owners use to access their phones. Blue Cedar’s technology allows us to intercept and encrypt network and data-at-rest operations, and when coupled with Face ID, is completely transparent to the user. We are proud to deliver such a critical feature that ultimately offers zero compromise between security and ease-of-use.”

In a recent company blog, Blue Cedar talks about the important of mobile app security and how different securing apps is from securing networks. “Traditional corporate security focuses on preventing malware, phishing, and advanced persistent threats,” the blog notes. “The security measures that can protect corporate networks and their centralized systems – whether cloud or on premises – are fairly well defined. However, mobile app developers and ISVs still face a critical security challenge: how best to protect corporate data on a device, while at the same time taking advantage of device-specific capabilities to improve business outcomes.”