Holistic Authentication Framework for Virtual Agents; UK Banking Industry

Abstract

The exponential growth and advancements of information technology and artificial intelligence significantly enhance the capabilities of virtual agents. This creates opportunities for businesses such as banks to adapt virtual agents for banking operations. Security and privacy are the ultimate concern for any e-banking system or application. Therefore, virtual agents inherit this concern. The previous literature lacks the knowledge of a suitable authentication framework for the virtual agents use in the UK banking industry. This forms a vulnerability for the banks while providing an opportunity for cyber attackers to attack the endpoints of the virtual agents. Moreover, it produces the risk of exposing sensitive customer data. Therefore, this research was conducted to fill the knowledge gap by proposing an authentication framework for the banking virtual agents. The proposed framework considers several security standards and controls to ensure that the proposed framework fits for the purpose. A simulation was used to validate accessibility, scalability, security and vulnerability of the proposed authentication framework. Finally, the analysis of results demonstrated that the proposed authentication framework carries the ability to fulfil the requirements of securing the virtual agents in the UK banks from external and internal cyber threats.