Free “two-factor” Password System

By Alan Harten

National Identity Fraud Prevention Week is running this week and amongst other issues is trying to point out to the public and business the dangers of using a single password.

According to government figures around £1bn per year is spirited away in various identity theft scams. On top of that laptops can cause other serious data loss problems. There seems to be hardly a week goes by that a government organisation doesn’t loose laptops full of potentially harmful information.

The big problem with these laptops is auto login with automated password insertion means that a thief has no problem accessing all kinds of information, many company’s and government offices have avoided upgrading to more complex password systems because of cost.

Until the end of this month company’s can take advantage of a ‘Password Amnesty’ from two-factor authentication (2FA) provider CRYPTOCard. Under the scheme business users can replace single password systems with “two-factor” authentication for up to 200 users per business.

Each business will be given free use of CRYPTO-MAS the companies managed 2FA service. Unlike internet services the system positively identifies individuals before giving them access.

As with other systems they have to insert a password but they also have to give a second word that they do not know and that has been delivered to them by another means such as smartcard, hardware or software token or even SMS.

The system is situated in front of a company’s remote access or VPN network; this means that there is no need for hardware installation, set up only takes a few minutes.