Confident Technologies Inc., a provider of image-based authentication and verification solution announced Tuesday, that it has designed a CAPTCHA security test, optimized for smartphones and tablets called Confident CAPTCHA. Research shows that more people tend to use their smartphone to access the Internet and many large companies seek to optimize their business by meeting consumer needs.
Websites require the use of CAPTCHAs to distinguish between human visitors and computer bots. Bots spread spam, register fake accounts and make fraudulent purchases. It's an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". It's required for mobile versions of websites too and customers are more likely go to a competitor's site that they find more mobile friendly instead of accessing the site on a personal computer, according to consumer surveys.
To enhance the user mobile experience, an authentication solution such as Confident CAPTCHA offers a user friendly approach, requesting for the user to simply tap a series of photos. Optimized for mobile viewing, the user interface features an easy to view image grid and automatically scales to the size of the device's screen, eliminating the need to zoom or scroll. It also rotates to fit either portrait or landscape orientation allowing users to one handedly solve the CAPTCHA and prove that they are human and not a bot.
"CAPTCHA has its critics, both from user experience and security perspectives. Difficulty in reading CAPTCHA text can lead to a user abandoning their transaction and leaving a website. As a result, organizations are starting to look for alternative solutions or are abandoning CAPTCHA for more user-friendly technologies," said Alan Goode, Founder of the mobile security analyst firm Goode Intelligence in a press release. "This trend is amplified by the rise of mobile computing where the combination of touch screen input and smaller size make using CAPTCHA on a mobile device more troublesome." Goode adds.
In recent news, ticket sales distribution company, Ticketmaster recently announced that it was moving away from the traditional form of CAPTCHAs and incorporating picture security validations into their websites. More online retail companies may begin following this pattern for their mobile platforms, offering consumers a way securely validate purchases from their smartphone or tablet. Research shows that online purchases made on mobile devices are expected to total $11.6 billion for 2013 and could reach $31 billion by 2015.
