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SecurEnvoy, PasswordBank in authentication deal

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 10 Jan 2013

Authentication solutions vendor, SecurEnvoy has partnered with identity management company, PasswordBankto bring their two-factor authentication capabilities to the brand's identity management offering.

According to Steve Watts, sales director at SecurEnvoy, many companies acknowledge the importance of security and, as a result, implement a two-factor authentication process.

"But forcing users to carry tokens around with them (and not letting them login if they don't have them) defeats the point," he says.

Authentication tokens generate a one time passcode, says Watts. Unlike PIN numbers, he adds, these passcodes change and expire within a set time. Today, these one time codes can be generated by apps on a smartphone or sent via SMS eliminating the need for a dedicated security token.

"We have enabled two-factor authentication with tokens for some time, but our clients are starting to demand solutions that are cheaper to implement and deliver more flexibility," says Dennis Lee, VP of technology for PasswordBank.

"By offering the tokenless solution from SecurEnvoy, we can meet the demands from our customers - and we can implement it with our current systems easily."

Two factor authentication?

The companies says two factor authentication verifies that a person is who they say they are and requires the combination of two out of three possible factors. These include something you know - a username, password or PIN; something you have - a credit card or token - and something you are - a fingerprint, they add.

Through the partnership, they say customers can access cloud solutions, such as Google Apps, Office365 and Salesforce.com, through PasswordBank's single-sign-on platform, using SMS messages for two-factor authentication.

"A major benefit of cloud technology is that it frees employees from their workstations, and gives them access to the tools they need, wherever they are and whenever they need it," says Watts. "By combining the freedom of using SMS messages as the second factor, with the flexibility of the cloud, suddenly workers really do have the freedom they need."

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