mSIGNIA is a software cybersecurity company specializing in SDKs – especially mobile app SDKs for iOS and Android – which collect identity and risk data to protect payment transactions like those defined by EMV 3DS and EMV SRC. mSIGNIA’s SDKs collect the data required for multi-factor authentication in compliance with PSD2 SCA and proprietary authentication methods like behavioral and digital biometrics. If ‘Data is the New Oil’, mSIGNIA’s universal SDKs are the wells that produce it.
mSIGNIA’s products are EMV 3DS and PSD2 SCA compliant and sold to payment service providers, acquirers, payment networks, issuers, risk scoring engines, and even other 3DS vendors. mSIGNIA’s universal SDK, 3DS Merchant Server and Payment Simulator enhance EMV 3DS with improved data transparency, better risk data collection, mobile-first design, and SCA compliance.
mSIGNIA is privately and strategically held with 3 of the top 4 investors being large, international financial institutions; there is no VC ownership in the company. Nearly half of mSIGNIA’s investors have invested multiple times throughout the life of the company.
mSIGNIA is headquartered in Irvine, California with product development teams in the US and Europe.
mSIGNIA was founded by Paul Miller and George Tuvell and has grown to be an expert team dedicated to the creation, enhancement and improvement of the EMV 3DS payment security solution.
Paul Miller – Paul has been in security since 1993 and mobile security since 1999. His prior experiences include leading global mobile security efforts at Symantec®, Gemplus® (now Thales®) and GTE Cybertrust® as well as innovative startups in the US and Switzerland. He has served on numerous industry boards including Radicchio® (the first ever mobile security consortium), Liberty Alliance® (the first identity consortium), EMVCo®, the Global Chipcard Alliance® and he served as the only US national on a European Commission project on trusted transaction roaming. He is inventor on over 20 security related patents.
George Tuvell – George’s entire career – since 1999 – has been in mobile security. mSIGNIA is George’s 3rd mobile security startup. His prior startup, SMobile Systems®, was a global innovator in operator-grade mobile security solutions for large customers including AT&T®, Sybase®, Vodafone®, Nokia®, and VeriSign®; Juniper Networks® bought SMobile in 2010. He has worked with security industry associations including the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group®, Mobile Anti-Virus Research Association®, Oceanos® and EMVCo. He is inventor on about 30 mobile and security related patents.
Joe Hurley – Joe joined mSIGNIA’s board and operational team after retiring from Discover Financial Services®, where Joe was SVP and Head of Global Business Development and held various other leadership positions. Joe led Discover’s investment in mSIGNIA with past responsibilities including strategic business relationships, global network alliances, merger and acquisition opportunities such as leading the team for the PULSE ATM-Debit Network® and Diners Club®, and other strategic networks initiatives. Joe has sat on several boards including various Diners Club franchises and the Electronic Funds Transfer Association®.
Mobile-first is a recent buzzword; mSIGNIA’s founders have specialized in mobile security since 1999. Since then, they have led mobile security efforts worldwide for Symantec®, GTE Cybertrust®, Gemplus®, and various start-ups.
Mobile is a game changer: the device is so personal it literally puts you online. No longer does a user have to go to a PC and login; users are now always connected causing the physical and digital worlds to overlap and intermix.
mSIGNIA was founded because mobile changed everything… but security failed to change with it. mSIGNIA was the first company to provide iOS and Android security SDKs that are integrated into a mobile app… providing security from within the app. This caused mSIGNIA to quickly realize SDKs distributed in 3rd-party apps must be flexible and well managed.
Security now requires a mobile-first design. Security now requires the experience of mSIGNIA.
mSIGNIA’s patent-pending uSDK enable the payment ecosystem to thrive in the mobile environment… rather than be limited by it. Follow the links to learn more about the balance between merchant apps and issuer risk engines.
Ensuing a user’s privacy is critical to consumer trust and global compliancy laws. mSIGNIA’s privacy professionals have a long history of privacy policy and are members of the IAPP.
With mobile apps, users are given the opportunity to individually approve the permissions an app requests to access data. While mSIGNIA recommends certain permissions because their data improves security (i.e. geolocation and identifiers), mSIGNIA does not itself request permissions nor do we require an app developer to request certain permissions.
mSIGNIA’s multi-party, remotely configurable uSDK enables merchants and banks to control which data is collected and passed according to international privacy laws and ecosystem rules. The uSDK is also designed to limit the number of off-device, third-party connections a mobile app initiates to control data exposure.
Even after a user gives their consent for a mobile app to access their data, mSIGNIA’s patented Digital Biometric products take great care to anonymize any personal identifiable data allowable before it is sent off the device through various fuzzing and hashing techniques. These techniques ensure PII is not stored on web servers and the anonymization of identifiers prevents multiple web services from colluding to create a cross-indexing of a user or their device.
mSIGNIA has about 20 international patents, either issued or pending, that define mSIGNIA’s inventions in Digital Biometrics, Dynamic Key Cryptography, and SDK Management.
mSIGNIA’s Digital Biometrics US patent # 9,559,852 was part of IP litigation where in May 2018 the Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected an attack attempting to invalidate the Digital Biometric patent. mSIGNIA Digital Biometric inventions use Data Analytics (machine learning, AI, etc.) to identify users and devices by anticipating how their data on the device changes.
The extensions which enable mSIGNIA’s universal SDK (or uSDK) to be remotely configured by 3rd parties to perform various functions like storing 3rd party data in a mobile app, collecting custom data from the device, and prompting for device functionality like capturing a fingerprint are embodied in mSIGNIA’s SDK Management US provisional patent #US20200250342A1.
mSIGNIA’s patent issued portfolio includes US patent numbers 8817984, 9294448, 9559852, 9722804, 9979707, 10178076 and international patent numbers 6095691 (Japan), 6489328 (Japan), HK1204719 (Hong Kong), and EP2810401B1 (Europe).