SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PERFORMING AUTHENTICATION USING DATA ANALYTICS

A system, apparatus, method, and machine readable medium are described for performing authentication using data analytics such as machine learning. For example, one embodiment of a method comprises: selecting a set of parameters related to user activity on a client device; receiving a request to authenticate the user for a current transaction; responsively calculating a distance between parameters associated with the current transaction and historical parameters from an existing dataset; determining a risk level associated with the current transaction based on the calculated distances between the parameters associated with the current transaction and the historical parameters; selecting one or more authentication techniques required to authenticate the user based on the risk level; performing the one or more authentication techniques to attempt to authenticate the user and generating an authentication result; and updating the historical parameters using the parameters associated with the current transaction and the authentication result.