Counterfeiting is perhaps as old as money itself and is a problem virtually for every industry.  It has internationally evolved as a big business and is estimated to have grown over 10,000 percent in the past two decades.  Globally, counterfeiting has been fuelled by growing consumer demands in assorted industry verticals and lack of awareness about counterfeiting among general public.  Historically, starting from currencies to forged documents, counterfeiting today has migrated to luxury goods, consumer goods, automotives, aeronautics, pharmaceutical drugs, apparels and accessories, media products, food and beverages and organizations.
   
Conventionally almost all the governance procedures were paper based and still the bulk remains to be the same.  Humanity attributes a sense of confidence and trust to these physical documents, even though it is just a psychological phenomenon.  As a matter of fact, mankind does not want to derail wholly from this business practice.  With the revolutionary leap in digital technology, it has become relatively easy for people to produce forged version of any document in a much flexible and effective manner.  

The threat of digital counterfeiting and forgery of any documents is growing at an increasing pace and the same has migrated from professional counterfeiters to casual counterfeiters primarily due to the availability of advanced technologies coupled with negligible production cost.  Forgery varies from counterfeit documents, to currencies, to passports, to driving licenses, to national ID cards, to educational certificates and to financial documents.  Hence, with the technological advancement, securing valuable documents have become a serious threat and constant challenge.  Further, secure documents are absolutely essential for effective governance and administration and therefore this problem needs to be countered.  Moreover, the associated risks for accepting fraudulent documents are substantial, both financially and legally.  A feasible solution to this fraudulent behavior is the effective implementation of anti-counterfeiting solutions.  

Counterfeiting has been an issue of concern over the last thirty years, which had sown its seeds locally and has evolved now as a multinational problem.  Thus counterfeiting poses a real threat to authentic documents, legitimate sales of products and its brand image, causing catastrophic consequences to national security and economy and to health and safety of consumers.

The boom in counterfeiting has been driven largely by the advance in technology.  With the widespread use of internet along with cheap and high-quality equipments, it has made possible for people without sophisticated training to easily mass produce counterfeit products.  In conjunction to this, enforcement laps of rigorous trademark rules in various countries have also been a fuelling factor for this global phenomenon.

Traditionally, various measures have been evolved to tackle the rising disgust of counterfeiting, which later on progressed as a practice discipline, called anti-counterfeiting technology.  This is a process aimed at deterring counterfeiters with the aid of technological advancement.  Technological leap has helped in realization of various sophisticated anti-counterfeiting systems such as Security Holograms, Security Printing, Biometric Solutions, Digital Security, Card-based Technologies etc.