The Authentication Problem

The haphazard system of PINs, typed passwords and personal information that characterizes the security of most corporate and personal information systems is insecure, intrusive, and inconvenient:

• Insecure: The problem with identifying yourself with a PIN, password or personal information is that anyone who knows or discovers this information can pretend to be you. Unfortunately, personal information is very easy to obtain, and 'identity theft' is a growing problem. Every year, billions of dollars are lost because of fraud, because of people stealing passwords and credit card numbers. Every few days the news report another e-commerce site that has been hacked, sometimes compromising the customer information stored on merchants' computers. In the short run, merchants get stuck with the bill for fraud; but, in the long run, the customer pays for this fraud with higher prices.
• Intrusive: Services that require a person to authenticate his or her identity by giving personal or financial information, such as a social security number or credit card number, are intrusive. They require the customer give information that may have no relevance to the transaction, and also offer the customer no control over how this information is stored, used or disseminated.
• Inconvenient: The number of different PINs and passwords you have to remember seems to increase daily. Since most of us do not want to remember dozens of different passwords, we end up using one or two easy-to-remember passwords for all services. That in itself is insecure, since passwords that are easy to remember are also more easy to break. Using the same password for several accounts or services also compromises security.

Anovea's biometric authentication technology provides the solution.