Industry Biometric Security Website www.hypr.com Founded 2014 | Products HYPR-1, HYPR-2, HYPR-3 Headquarters New York City | |
Key people George Avetisov (CEO),
Bojan Simic (CTO),
Roman Kadinsky (CFO/COO) Type Private company limited by shares | ||
HYPR Corp is a venture-backed, New York based, company that provides decentralized biometric encryption to secure password-less authentication across multiple platforms such as desktop, mobile and IoT systems. The company was founded in 2014 with $800,000 in private seed capital before concluding a $3 million growth funding round in October 2016 from New York based RTP Ventures and Boldstart Ventures, and Taiwan-based Mesh Ventures.
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Biometric Tokenization
Biometric tokenization is a security protocol in which sensitive biometric data required for authentication is encrypted and substituted with a non-sensitive equivalent (referred to as a token) which is then used for authentication through a symmetric or asymmetric cryptographic channel.
Systems based on biometric tokenization rely on the decentralized storage of biometric data on the client-side of an authentication channel - in users’ connected devices - as opposed to a centralized repository such as a server-side database. Unlike the use of passwords, which are compared against a centralized database of many users’ passwords, biometric tokenization allows users to authorize transactions by verifying their unique biometric template on their own local device - which is then used to sign a cryptographic challenge validated on a server. Rather than exposing sensitive biometric authentication data to the internet, user credentials are stored locally and tokenized - preventing malicious 3rd parties from re-using compromised credentials. By combining the user experience of biometric tokenization with the strength of public key cryptography, HYPR provides a decentralized biometric authentication scheme to replace the use of centralized password-based systems.
The result of implementing biometric tokenization is an “inverted” authentication channel in which hackers are unable to gain credentials by attacking a centralized repository of biometrics and are forced to target individual user devices. By forcing malicious attackers to divert attention from a centralized validation server to many client-side devices, biometric tokenization decreases the viability of an attack on the client-server authentication channel, rendering the common large-scale server-side data breach an unscalable attack vector.
According to HYPR Corp, HYPR technology is designed based on the following principles:
HYPR platform
The HYPR platform provides enterprises an end-to-end suite of software, firmware and hardware to enable decentralized biometric security for data across mobile, desktop and IoT systems. As an interoperable solution, users may choose from a variety of biometric authentication methods, by leveraging existing fingerprint sensors, cameras and microphones on mobile devices. HYPR is available as a cross platform SDK for BYOD deployment, or as a tamper proof security token for mission critical settings.
The HYPR biometric security platform seeks to secure the use of biometrics and to enhance user experience through password-less authentication. Users of applications with embedded HYPR technology do not need to create, remember, securely store, or reset passwords because there aren’t any passwords required for authentication.
Software, firmware and hardware
History
HYPR Corp was founded in 2014 in New York City by a team of security researchers with $800,000 in private seed capital before concluding a $3 million growth funding round in October 2016 from New York based RTP Ventures and Boldstart Ventures, and Taiwan-based Mesh Ventures. HYPR Corp is a working group member of the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) Alliance, a consortium of global enterprises working towards open standards for strong authentication.
The company’s biometric security technology was unveiled at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2015 in Las Vegas. The HYPR platform was featured as one of the top 10 best technologies of CES 2015 by ZDNet and has gone on to be implemented by enterprises across banking, healthcare and e-commerce verticals. HYPR Corp aims to differentiate its technology by providing enterprise customers an end-to-end solution - complete with interoperable software, firmware and hardware necessary to deploy biometric security at scale.