BPOs currently face what feels like an insurmountable challenge when it comes to security. Modern MFA solutions either do not work in contact centers, don't meet compliance, and can require a significant investment in hardware. Having no MFA is not an option either, as that puts them at risk of being non-compliant. BPOs found non-compliant can be hit with huge fines, suffer a loss of clients, and worst of all find themselves with a severely damaged reputation.
Twosense Continuous MFA is designed specifically for BPO contact centers and enables organizations to deploy PCI-compliant MFA on every endpoint while simultaneously reducing their overall costs.
Unspoken Costs
Many modern MFA solutions available on the market simply do not work in contact centers. Mobile phones, one of the most used components of MFA, are strictly prohibited from being on the floor or with an agent. Even if mobile devices weren’t restricted, many people do not have a mobile phone, or may have a device that does not support apps of this nature. Then the company would be on the hook to provide a device that could be used for MFA. These complications eliminate any MFA solution that requires a cell phone as an option.
An alternative to that is deploying something which requires a hard token. While they do work in contact centers, they come with a significant financial investment. Let's say you have a team of 100 agents. 100 hard tokens such as Yubikeys would cost $4500 prior to any discounts. To implement something like RSA SecurID an organization would need to be prepared to spend $10,000.00 MSRP for 100 devices.
The cost associated with managing hard tokens is not something that should be overlooked. In addition to purchasing the hard tokens themselves, organizations should consider the manpower required to manage these security keys. As with any device, the battery can die, get lost, or damaged and employees will need support available. There is also the responsibility of assigning, managing, and eventually collecting tokens as people are hired, fired, or quit. With an industry average of 150% turnover, organizations actually end up purchasing roughly an additional 150 keys over a year! With churn factored in, the $4,500 for Yubikeys becomes over $11,000, and the $10,000 for SecurID tokens becomes $25,000. This is not only expensive but unsustainable.
Reducing Security Friction
Another common cost BPOs encounter is security friction. Time is money, and every second an agent spends on MFA instead of helping customers costs money. On average agents lose about 40 minutes a month to security-related procedures.
MFA is absolutely essential, so in no way is eliminating it a solution to this problem. In fact, multi-factor authentication is becoming even more important in contact centers. Non-compliance fines can range anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000 per month until compliance is obtained. MFA is required to meet PCI DSS requirements, but BPOs are also learning that MFA is required to maintain or acquire cyber insurance as well.
This also holds true for acquiring new customers, BPOs are now expected to meet the standards of their customer's policies. This means if a customer is required to have MFA on every endpoint, so if the BPO they use. If an organization is unable to meet that requirement it will result in the loss of a customer, but even worse could damage their reputation should this occur more than once.
Optimizing Contact Centers
With Twosense Passive or Continuous MFA, organizations can deploy MFA in a contact center environment for a team of 100 for as little as $3600 for the year. Unlike hard tokens, Twosense does not require organizations to assign, reassign, or manage seats or devices. By design, Twosense only counts people actively using the software in the last 30 days. This helps reduce friction for admins and reduces wasteful spending.
Twosense products allow for IT to deploy biometric, PCI-compliant MFA on every endpoint, both of which save on average 40 minutes a month per agent by eliminating identity security friction.
For BPOs looking to do more than just check the MFA box and save money, Continuous MFA is able to detect every attempt to access a protected machine by a malicious user. This not only enables teams to deploy multi-factor authentication everywhere but adds an additional layer of protection from potential data breaches.
The financial fallout from a data breach is not something to take lightly. Beyond reputational damages, organizations face the cost of remediation, any potential infrastructure updates that might be necessary, or the cost of having an audit done, which can often cost upwards of $100,000 alone.
Don't risk the unnecessary costs of insufficient or no multi-factor authentication in your contact center. To schedule your one-on-one demo, click here.
