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Written by: Entrust

The digital identity landscape is evolving faster than ever, driven by sophisticated fraud tactics and rising expectations for seamless customer experiences. As the landscape changes, businesses must evolve to stay ahead of evolving threats, choosing identity security solutions that transform with developing threats.

In this blog post, we’ll explore current identity security trends that are shaping the space and how Entrust is innovating to strengthen security postures for organizations around the globe.

Key Takeaways:

  • AI‑driven fraud is evolving quickly, so staying ahead means using continuous identity checks, smarter fraud detection, and strong biometrics from the very start.
  • Identity has officially become the heart of Zero Trust, making ongoing verification, device‑health checks, and reusable biometrics more important than ever.
  • Passwordless and passkey sign‑ins are becoming industry standard, giving users a smoother login experience while reducing the risks tied to stolen passwords and OTP codes.
  • Third‑party identity risks are rising, which makes stronger verification, better document coverage, and sanctions screening must‑haves for partner onboarding.
  • Consolidated identity workflows, powered by A/B testing, built‑in analytics, and integrated e‑signatures, help teams cut friction and make smarter, data‑driven decisions.
  • Entrust continues to push identity security forward, earning recognition as the 2026 “Global Verification Platform of the Year” at the FinTech Breakthrough Awards.

1. AI Everywhere: Staying Ahead of Fraud With Automation

The digital identity landscape is undergoing a major transformation. As generative AI accelerates both innovation and deepfake exploitation, organizations across every sector must rethink how they establish trust, verify users, and defend against sophisticated fraud, including emerging deepfake and identity theft risks.

Identity is no longer a single checkpoint during onboarding; it has become a continuous process at the core of digital security and customer experience. Accelerating AI‑driven attacks demand strategic thinking and strong partnerships, which is why Entrust teamed up with Google to enhance identity verification (IDV).

So, how do leaders respond? Assume AI‑accelerated threats and develop identity proofing, authentication, and risk scoring processes earlier in the journey. Then, keep assessing risk continuously.

How You Can Reduce AI-Accelerated Threats With Entrust

  • Integrations With Mastercard Identity network. Account Opening Risk by Mastercard Identity applies real‑time, network‑driven risk signals at the first touchpoint to intelligently route users. This fast‑tracks low‑risk customers while stopping bad actors before they enter your system. Integrated into Workflow Studio, it helps you reduce fraud, improve efficiency, and accelerate new user onboarding.
  • Trusted biometric authentication beyond onboarding. Trusted biometric authentication adds secure, repeat identity checks during high‑risk moments like account recovery or high‑value transactions, using AI‑powered facial biometrics to confirm identity in seconds without adding friction for trusted users.
  • Continuously learning document fraud engine. Our document fraud engine continuously learns from global fraud patterns, adapting in real time to stop emerging threats and strengthen verification decisions. This adaptive protection improves accuracy, reduces risk, and delivers a more secure, streamlined onboarding experience.

2. Identity at the Core of Zero Trust

NIST’s Zero Trust model represents a fundamental shift away from perimeter‑based security, replacing assumed trust with continuous, identity‑centric verification for every user and device. Zero Trust architecture (ZTA) reframes security around the principle that no entity, neither human nor machine, should be implicitly trusted based solely on network location, affiliation, or ownership. Instead, authentication and authorization are required before every access attempt, which is foundational for organizations adopting Zero Trust across hybrid and multi‑cloud ecosystems.

How should business leaders respond to updated ZTA guidance? Implement risk‑adaptive access, continuously evaluate identities, and enforce least privilege at every step.

Support Better ZTA Guidance with Entrust

  • Biometric identity assurance. A reusable biometric identity, delivered via biometric identity assurance services, allows customers to be securely reverified throughout their lifecycle, maintaining consistent trust, strengthening account takeover defenses, and delivering a frictionless experience across high-risk interactions.
  • Enhanced device posture. Strong identity security requires continuous evaluation of device health, ensuring that only trusted, compliant devices can initiate or maintain access. End-to-end identity assurance enables financial institutions to enforce risk‑based access decisions.
  • Streamlined Zero Trust adoption for financial institutions. Designed around Zero Trust principles, our comprehensive identity verification solution unifies Mastercard risk signals, LSEG data checks, and ComplyAdvantage screening to strengthen identity decisions from the start. This helps institutions cut fraud and meet CIP/KYC requirements without slowing customers down.

3. Passwordless and Passkey Sign-ins Set a New Standard

Passkeys are seeing rapid adoption due to higher success rates and dramatically lower friction, making them one of the strongest signals that passwordless sign‑ins are becoming the new industry standard. In 2025, FIDO’s Passkey Index reported that passkey sign‑ins achieved a 93% success rate and reduced login time by 73%, which drove significant reductions in login‑related help‑desk tickets. More organizations have begun prioritizing passkeys not only for improved usability but also for phishing resistance, which minimizes usage of passwords and one‑time passcodes (OTPs).

How should business leaders respond? Prioritize passkeys and passwordless sign-ins for enhanced consumer usability but also to promote a stronger security foundation and reduce avenues for deepfake identity theft during recovery flows and high‑risk events.

Accelerate Passwordless and Passkey Systems

  • Biometrics support a shift toward passwordless ecosystems. Trusted biometric authentication builds a phishing-resistant architecture and reduces dependence on passwords and OTPs at the moments where risk is highest, strengthening journeys that already use passkeys for baseline access.

4. Growing Complexities of Third-Party Identity Ecosystems

Breaches increasingly originate with partners and suppliers, with the 2025 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report showing a doubling of third‑party involvement in security incidents due to limited visibility, inconsistent controls, and over‑privileged external access. In a Zero Trust world, the partner ecosystem becomes an extension of the business, serving as added opportunities for threats. Third-party identity ecosystems should be included, not excepted, from security policy, particularly as Zero Trust adoption increasingly extends to suppliers and contractors.

How should business leaders respond? Verify third-party identities to the same extent as internal users, apply least‑privilege access from the start, and enforce continuous monitoring through the identity lifecycle. This reduces implicit trust and ensures every external interaction is authenticated and authorized.

Confidently Validate Third-Party Identities

  • Comprehensive identity verification solutions. Stronger third‑party identity security solutions apply layered risk signals, authoritative data checks, and sanctions/AML screening at the very first touchpoint. This ensures external users, vendors, and partners are verified accurately and granted appropriate access with minimal friction.
  • Multi-language support for document verification. Enhance third‑party identity security for global ecosystems by accurately verifying documents from different regions, improving trust in cross‑border partners and contractors while supporting compliance with regional and industry‑specific requirements.

5. Governance Consolidation + Automation

Identity programs are merging and being unified to reduce silos and automate decisions, which improves auditability and cuts operational slowdowns. Consolidation allows security teams to centralize visibility across human and machine identities, incorporate device posture checks where relevant, eliminate duplicate workflows, and enforce consistent access policies across every environment.

How should business leaders proceed? Merge policies and lifecycle workflows into a cohesive system, using intelligent automation to review access, test changes, and refine flows.

Streamline Identity Workflows and Reduce Friction

  • A/B testing for identity workflows in Workflow Studio. A/B test workflow versions by splitting traffic between each version before rolling them out broadly. This allows you to validate changes on a smaller scale and use real data to improve performance, taking the guesswork out of decisions before committing to updates.
  • Extend identity verification workflows with integrated electronic signatures. Integrating Simple Electronic Signatures (SES), Advanced Electronic Signatures (AES), and Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES) directly into the identity workflows centralizes verification and agreement signing in one automated process, reducing operational silos and manual document handling.

Entrust Innovating in the Identity Security Space

As the identity security landscape shifts, Entrust continues to innovate and develop comprehensive identity-centric security solutions for a rapidly changing environment, including defenses against deepfake identity theft and broader adoption of Zero Trust initiatives. That’s why we’re proud to be recognized as a winner in the 10th annual FinTech Breakthrough Awards, earning the prestigious “Global Verification Platform of the Year” distinction for 2026. With more than 4,500 nominations submitted by leading fintech innovators worldwide, this year’s program was one of the most competitive to date, making the honor even more meaningful as Entrust joins an elite group of winners that includes Mastercard, NerdWallet, Betterment, Capital One, Payoneer, and other industry leaders.