I am an enthusiastic user of the Verisign PIP two-factor authentication service. It’s a system that allows you to add additional security to sites that support OpenID by adding a one-time-password as a second factor of authentication. So, even after you’ve authenticated to sites like e-Bay and PayPal (many big sites support it), you are prompted for a…
From Password Reset Mechanisms to OpenID: A Brief Discussion of Online Password Security
For those not familiar, OpenID is a system that allows you to sign in to multiple websites using one identity. So, rather than have a different username and password for each site, you would just sign into each one using your OpenID credentials. In addition to the convenience this offers, there’s a security benefit in that the websites…
Verisign VIP for Two-Factor Authentication, and PIP for OpenID
I’ve been using Verisign VIP for a while now with a hard token like the one seen below. It allows you to add two-factor authentication to sites like Ebay and PayPal. But at RSA 2009, which I just returned from, I found out Verisign has released a soft token as well, and it works for all the main…
BioPassword: Two-Factor Authentication The Easy Way
For anyone those who hasn’t heard about it, there’s a really cool new product out by the name of BioPassword. The product does two-factor authentication in a very unique way. Rather than rely on a token or smart card (something that you need to authenticate and can be lost or broken), the system takes its second factor the…