Cogneto

New Venture Pioneers ‘Cognitive Authentication’ Identifying Users By Their Unique Experiences And Behavior

After six months in stealth mode, Cogneto Inc. formally launched today with a mission to combat identity fraud for people using online services. Founded by a team of leading security experts, cognitive psychologists, network architects and specialists in human-computer interaction, Cogneto is pioneering a new branch of biometrics which identifies people based on behaviors inherent in the way they interact with computers.

‘Cognitive authentication’ is the most effective way to validate the identity of online customers since each person’s recognition abilities, response times and personal experiences are unique to them. Financial institutions, online retailers and military organizations need to authenticate their customers in a user-friendly, secure, reliable and cost-effective manner - a challenge which Cogneto aims to address.

Wireless and investment banking veteran Ralph Scobie, will lead Cogneto as chairman, president and CEO. He is joined by an experienced management team including:

• Patrick Audley, chief technology officer, and former founder of Group Telecom’s PKI division
• John Bradley, chief network officer, and founder of Group Telecom, Canada’s most successful CLEC
• Dr Andrew Csinger, chief strategy officer, former founder of Xcert Software Inc, a pioneer of public key infrastructure (PKI) software
• Martin Renaud, chief scientist, and experienced experimental psychologist with a specialism in memory
• Dr Barry Po, director of user experience, a leading expert in human-computer interaction

Adrian Beeston, managing director, international, will head Cogneto’s London office.

“With the increasing threat of online fraud and identify theft, banks and other online organizations must take proactive steps to protect their customers by deploying strong authentication and security solutions,” said Ralph Scobie, CEO of Cogneto. “Until now those security measures always meant some form of compromise, whether in terms of usability, cost or the level of security provided. With cognitive authentication, Cogneto ends that dilemma - it is hardware-free, user-friendly and extremely secure.”

Cogneto’s two-way, multi-factor, strong authentication platform, UNOMI™, will be launched in October. It combines cognitive authentication with proactive universal risk mitigation enabling online service providers to securely validate the identity of their customers based on a range of behavioral measurements (such as response times), device inputs (such as the user’s IP address) and global factors (such as the ambient fraud threat level).

Cogneto is funded by a group of angel investors and with private equity. It has offices in Seattle, Vancouver, Canada and London, England.