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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchDigital identity security faces three connected challenges: deepfakes can undermine remote liveness checks, impersonation can exploit weak remote onboarding, and virtual-asset rules must address fraud without ignoring privacy. These are the three fronts described by Vyacheslav Zholudev, Sumsub co-founder and CTO, in a 2023 Dark Reading commentary—a useful framing of selected risks, not a complete or permanent map of the field.
The key to understanding them is to separate identity proofing from account authentication and authorization. A stronger check on one front does not automatically solve the others.
What the three fronts mean
Digital identity can refer to evidence representing a person in the real world, such as an identity document, as well as credentials used to access online services. The threats overlap, but the controls answer different questions.
- Identification: What identity is being claimed?
- Verification: Is the identity information or credential genuine, valid, or accurate?
- Authentication: Is this person in control of the account or credential being used?
- Authorization: Is this authenticated person allowed to access this particular resource?
A June 19, 2026 W3C team report on digital identity on the Web uses these distinctions and discusses centralized, federated, and decentralized identity relationships, including credentials stored in wallets. The report is exploratory; it is not a W3C standard or a consensus statement.
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Front 1: Deepfakes challenge remote liveness checks
Remote onboarding may ask someone to use a phone or computer camera, then compare their face with an official identity image or video. Liveness detection is intended to help establish that the camera is capturing a live person rather than a static image or replay. Synthetic images and video can weaken this kind of check.
Zholudev’s commentary proposes combining signals rather than relying on a face check alone. Its examples include mobile-location behavior, facial-depth sensing, emulator detection, voice checks that use a server-generated prompt, and prompted facial movement. These are suggested approaches, not a demonstrated ranking: the commentary does not show that any one signal, or their combination, reliably defeats deepfakes.
The commentary also reports a Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology finding that four common verification methods could be bypassed with deepfakes. The underlying study’s method, sample, date, and continuing relevance are not established by the commentary’s description, so that statement should be treated as a reported claim rather than a verified measure of current systems.
Front 2: Remote onboarding can be exploited for impersonation
A fraud attempt can begin with phishing that exposes personal information, continue with forged identity documents, and succeed if remote onboarding checks are too weak. A document check, a liveness check, device signals, and multifactor account authentication address different parts of that chain; none should be treated as a substitute for all the others.
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Zholudev argues that background, biometric, and multifactor checks need to work together, writing that “An effective process can no longer include one without the others.” That is his recommendation in the 2023 commentary, not a formal technical standard. It also does not mean that collecting more personal data is automatically safer: the commentary does not assess the privacy costs of the proposed checks.
Match the control to the question
| Control | Question it helps answer | What it does not establish by itself |
|---|---|---|
| Identity-document check | Does the submitted document appear genuine and valid? | That the applicant is the rightful holder or controls an account. |
| Face or liveness check | Does the captured interaction appear to involve a live person, and does the face match the reference? | That every synthetic-media or impersonation attack will be detected. |
| Device or emulator signals | Does the device or its behavior raise a risk signal? | A person’s legal identity. |
| Multifactor authentication or a security key | Can the user prove control of an account using an additional factor? | That the user’s identity documents are valid or that they were properly verified. |
| Authorization policy | May this authenticated user access a specific resource? | That the user was correctly identity-proofed at onboarding. |
A hardware security key can strengthen login authentication for services that support it. It does not perform liveness detection, validate identity documents, establish legal identity, or satisfy virtual-asset compliance requirements.
Front 3: Virtual-asset regulation must address fraud and privacy
Virtual-asset services face risks including fraud and money laundering, while identity and transaction controls can also affect privacy. Zholudev’s commentary describes the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Travel Rule as applying information-sharing standards to virtual-asset transfers and virtual-asset service providers.
The commentary says the rule was introduced in 2019 and that about 29 of 98 countries had enacted binding legislation at the time of publication. That is a historical figure reported in 2023, not a current country count; the underlying FATF publication is not identified in the commentary material. Requirements and implementation status vary by jurisdiction, so organizations need to check the rules that apply where they operate and where their customers or transactions are located.
Why identity design involves more than fraud prevention
Digital credentials and identity systems can make it easier to present information across services, particularly when systems interoperate. They also raise questions about who controls credentials, which parties can observe their use, and how systems are governed. The W3C team report discusses potential risks including surveillance, censorship, intrusion, discrimination, and governance failures alongside the benefits of interoperability.
That context matters when choosing controls. A control intended to reduce impersonation should be evaluated not only for the risk it addresses, but also for the information it collects, who can access that information, and whether it works across systems. The W3C report is an exploratory document, so it provides context rather than a binding design requirement.
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