Is continuous authentication a type of multi-factor authentication (MFA) or is it something else entirely?

It's complicated. Plurilock™ considers all of its products to be MFA solutions, as they enable the use several identity factors to confirm identity—some combination of things users know, things users have, and things users embody or “are,” in other words.

Plurilock’s continuous authentication solutions in particular enable multi-factor authentication in most cases by virtue of the fact that users are usually authenticated first at login via a username and password pair (things they know), then subsequently after login via patterns in their movement (things they embody).

With that said, in practice, most questions about MFA are intended to reference the addition of identity factors specifically to login prompts. For this reason, the inclusion of continuous behavioral-biometric authentication in any one “MFA discussion” may be surprising to discussion participants.

Plurilock offers both login workflow authentication solutions and continuous, full-workday authentication solutions, and we consider both to be strong MFA products.