Security of data is a primary concern for many businesses and securing the network identities that have access to this critical business information is a key success factor for business operations. This increased concern is greatly due to the change in the way applications are developed and accessed giving users the ability to perform their business tasks from outside the security and confines of a business’s private network. Allowing this additional flexibility of working beyond the confines of the private network brings with it an increased level of risk from unwanted attacks.Strong authentication solutions such as one time passwords (OTP) with tokens and Public Key Infrastructures (PKI) based logon with smart cards, which have the ability to withstand many common attacks, help to protect an organisations valuable data. The implementation of this strong authentication is very flexible and can be integrated into a business infrastructure at various key points dependent upon the business requirements.Strong authentication methods can be applied to user logon at:-o A domain
o Internal Websites
o Intranet applications
o Outlook Web Access (OWA)
o Virtual Private Networks (VPN)Which in turn gives a user the ability to securely perform their daily work tasks from anywhere with an internet connection.Two factor authentication (2FA) and three factor authentication (3FA) can drastically reduce the frequency of online identity theft and other online fraud due to the victim’s password no longer being sufficient to give an attacker access to their information.Both Public Key Infrastructures (PKI) and One Time Passwords (OTP) introduce a second factor in to the authentication process. It is the introduction of this second factor that increases the security of the authentication process.When referring to authentication, a factor is a piece of information used to verify a person’s identity for security purposes. The three most commonly recognized factors are:-o ‘Something you know’, such as a password or PIN
o ‘Something you have’, such as a credit card or hardware token
o’Something you are’, such as a fingerprint, a retinal pattern or other biometricA One Time Password (OTP) is an effective method of implementing a strong authentication solution. The OTP is commonly generated on a physical device such as a token and is entered by the user at the time of authentication, once used it cannot be reused which renders it useless to anyone that may have intercepted it during the authentication process.By replacing your businesses weak user name and static password security with this One Time Password strong authentication solution, you are guaranteed to increase the security of your network infrastructure by eliminating the possibility of a users logon credentials being stolen while using an unsecure network location. Even if a hacker can obtain the user’s name and password, they will be unable to copy the content of the token which generates the OTP, and therefore will be unable to access corporate network resources.
Strong Authentication, two factor authenticatio, multifactor authentication
tannercarrie11 