Organizations that don’t understand the difference between identity verification and identity authentication set themselves up for increased fraud losses. Specifically, treating a verified identity as authenticated or proofed makes an organization vulnerable to account takeover fraud and synthetic identities. Verifying an employee’s identity by checking against multiple data sources is easy, but it does not prove that the information belongs to the person entering that information. Proofing practices require a bit more work to confirm that the identifiers supplied belong to the person entering the information through things like government photo ID comparison, while authentication is an ongoing identity-proofing process that both checks the identity of digital users and ensures the integrity of the devices they use.
