Google and Entrust Team to Combat Identity Fraud

Identity verification company Entrust has launched a security partnership with Google.

The collaboration is designed to boost innovation in identity verification and AI-driven security amid a rapid rise of increasingly sophisticated fraud, according to a Monday (Feb. 9) news release.

“The integrated solution will help organizations strengthen security defenses against the rapid rise and sophistication of fraud while improving onboarding efficiency through deep reporting and actionable insights,” the companies said in the release.

“These capabilities are particularly important in highly regulated industries such as financial services and insurance, where the consequences of identity fraud are high for organizations and the people they serve.”

The release notes that the threat of identity fraud is growing along with the volume and complexity of deepfakes, citing data from Entrust showing a 40% year-over-year surge in injection attacks at onboarding.

The companies say their partnership combines Entrust identity verification solutions with Google Cloud’s infrastructure and security expertise, including its threat intelligence and incident-response ecosystem, helped along by its Gemini AI models.

“Our partnership with Entrust reflects Google’s commitment to helping businesses innovate securely and at scale,” said David Engelbrecht, head of go-to-market for Google Cloud.

“By combining Entrust identity verification solutions and their deep fraud intelligence with Google Cloud’s AI and infrastructure, we’re enabling organizations to deliver frictionless, trusted experiences for their customers.”

The partnership is happening at a time when digital identity has gone from being simply something companies do to comply with rules to something they do to compete, as PYMNTS wrote last month.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that more than 75% of financial services institutions say that identity processes have kept them from expanding customers, markets or geographies, while revenue losses from know your customer (KYC) and know your business (KYB) failures average 3%, coming to nearly $34 billion for the entire industry.

“The importance of digital identity infrastructure is growing against an operational backdrop where 76% of financial services firms make at least 75% of their revenue through digital channels,” the report added.

The research also highlighted the evolving nature of identity risk. Synthetic identity fraud, account takeover and adversarial bots and agents were flagged as among the most common and costly threats facing financial services companies.

“These threats exploit automation and scale, often passing traditional verification checks designed for a simpler environment,” PYMNTS wrote.