Authentication pioneer FireID appoints Lawrence T Levine first US-based company president

FireID, a leading provider of world-class security applications for mobile authentication, today announced the company has appointed Lawrence T Levine as President of its US and American-based operations. The company launched its American presence in April 2009.

Levine is a respected authority on information technology and security, particularly in the banking industry. He has over 20 years' experience designing and implementing advanced networking and security technology, uniquely qualifying Levine to provide sound strategic advice and planning to meet today's complex technology requirements.

After a career in networking and IT consulting beginning in the mid-1980s, Lawrence co-founded SecurePipe in 1996; the company was quickly established as a trusted and innovative provider of managed network security services to the financial services community, and is now a part of Trustwave, the leading provider of on-demand data security and PCI compliance management solutions.

“The Americas are primed for increasingly sophisticated mobile security and authentication solutions, and we at FireID are excited to provide that,” said Jenny Dugmore, CEO of FireID. “We are also excited to have someone of Lawrence's calibre at the helm of our US operation, leading our further expansion into the entire American market.”

Levine has experience as both an entrepreneur and technology expert, his breadth of knowledge allows him to see the “big picture” - and provide a unique perspective in serving today's growing need for advanced security and authentication solutions.

FireID is a groundbreaking authentication system that allows users to login securely and conveniently to almost anything that requires personal authentication. It provides users with three fundamental benefits that set it apart from existing security systems: it eliminates the need to remember multiple passwords, the need to receive passwords via SMS (which can be intercepted), and the need to carry any other authentication hardware.

The company generates secure one-time passwords instantaneously and completely offline using something that users always have with them: a mobile phone. After a simple installation process, available for thousands of different phone models, a FireID enabled phone can generate one-time passwords (OTP) for limitless different applications, such as online banking, Internet shopping and accessing an office VPN or extranet. Because OTPs are generated completely out-of-band, the opportunities for Internet fraud of any kind are significantly reduced.