An authenticator is a means used to confirm a user's identity, that is, to perform digital authentication. A person authenticates to a computer system or application by demonstrating that he or she has possession and control of an authenticator. In the simplest case, the authenticator is a common password.
Authentication is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicating a person or thing's identity, authentication is the process of verifying that identity. It might involve validating personal identity documents, verifying the authenticity of a website with a digital certificate, determining the age of an artifact by carbon dating, or ensuring that a product or document is not counterfeit.
A security token is a peripheral device used to gain access to an electronically restricted resource. The token is used in addition to, or in place of, a password. Examples of security tokens include wireless keycards used to open locked doors, a banking token used as a digital authenticator for signing in to online banking, or signing a transaction such as a wire transfer.
Password fatigue is the feeling experienced by many people who are required to remember an excessive number of passwords as part of their daily routine, such as to log in to a computer at work, undo a bicycle lock or conduct banking from an automated teller machine. The concept is also known as password chaos, or more broadly as identity chaos.
Daon is an international biometrics and identity assurance software company founded in 1999 by Irish entrepreneur Dermot Desmond. The name, Daon, was chosen because it stems from the Celtic word for human being, duine daonna. Daon is headquartered just miles outside of Washington, DC in Fairfax, VA. Daon also has major operations in Dublin, located in the International Financial Services Center (IFSC). It has an additional offices in Belgrade, Serbia and Canberra, Australia.
The FIDOAlliance is an open industry association launched in February 2013 whose stated mission is to develop and promote authentication standards that "help reduce the world’s over-reliance on passwords". FIDO addresses the lack of interoperability among devices that use strong authentication and reduces the problems users face creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords.
Keeper Security, Inc. (Keeper) is a global cybersecurity company known for providing of zero-knowledge security and encryption software covering functions such as password and passkey management, secrets management, privileged access management, secure remote access and encrypted messaging. It was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
The President's Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity is a Presidential Commission formed on April 13, 2016, to develop a plan for protecting cyberspace, and America's economic reliance on it. The commission released its final report in December 2016. The report made recommendations regarding the intertwining roles of the military, government administration and the private sector in providing cyber security. Chairman Donilon said of the report that its coverage "is unusual in the breadth of issues" with which it deals.
Onfido is a technology company that helps businesses verify people's identities using a photo-based identity document, a selfie and artificial intelligence algorithms.
OneSpan is a publicly traded cybersecurity technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices in Montreal, Brussels and Zurich. The company offers a cloud-based and open-architected anti-fraud platform and is historically known for its multi-factor authentication and electronic signature software.
Biometric tokenization is the process of substituting a stored biometric template with a non-sensitive equivalent, called a token, that lacks extrinsic or exploitable meaning or value. The process combines the biometrics with public-key cryptography to enable the use of a stored biometric template for secure or strong authentication to applications or other systems without presenting the template in its original, replicable form.
Okta, Inc. is an American identity and access management company based in San Francisco. It provides cloud software that helps companies manage and secure user authentication into applications, and for developers to build identity controls into applications, website, web services, and devices. It was founded in 2009 and had its initial public offering in 2017, reaching a valuation of over $6 billion.
Web Authentication (WebAuthn) is a web standard published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). WebAuthn is a core component of the FIDO2 Project under the guidance of the FIDO Alliance. The goal of the project is to standardize an interface for authenticating users to web-based applications and services using public-key cryptography. WebAuthn credentials are sometimes referred to as passkeys.
Bitwarden is a freemium open-source password management service that stores sensitive information, such as website credentials, in an encrypted vault. The platform offers a variety of client applications, including a web interface, desktop applications, browser extensions, mobile apps, and a command-line interface. Bitwarden offers a free US or European cloud-hosted service as well as the ability to self-host.
The Client to Authenticator Protocol (CTAP) or X.1278 enables a roaming, user-controlled cryptographic authenticator to interoperate with a client platform such as a laptop.
Passwordless authentication is an authentication method in which a user can log in to a computer system without the entering a password or any other knowledge-based secret. In most common implementations users are asked to enter their public identifier and then complete the authentication process by providing a secure proof of identity through a registered device or token.
Veriff is a global identity verification service company founded and headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia. The company offers services for online businesses to mitigate fraud attempts and assisting regulatory compliance. Offering protection from identity fraud and identity theft, Veriff verifies a customer's identity automatically, using an AI that analyzes a multitude of technological and behavioural indicators, including facial recognition. The service is provided to companies as an API, which has been compared to Stripe.
Perimeter 81 is an Israeli cloud and network security company that develops secure remote networks, based on the zero trust architecture, for organizations. Its technology replaces legacy security appliances like VPNs and firewalls.
NordPass is a proprietary password manager launched in 2019. It is meant to help its users to organise their passwords and secure notes, keeping them in a single encrypted password vault. This service comes in both free and premium versions, though the free version lacks much of the paid functionality like multi-device login. NordPass was developed by the same cybersecurity team that created NordVPN, a VPN service provider.
JumpCloud is an American enterprise software company headquartered in Louisville, Colorado. The company was formally launched in 2013 at TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield with its announcement of an automated server management tool. JumpCloud's offers a cloud-based directory platform for identity management.
