Multi factor authentication and its uses
The adoption of biometric authentication systems has presented an emerging approach to preventing and reducing the cases of identity theft and security breaches. While these problems open several challenges involving people's privacy and the security of their biometric data, inter-operability features have been adopted to increase the accuracy and reliability of biometric authentication systems. Using pertinent information such as social security number, passwords, fingerprints and other proofs of identity, various designs of MFA multi factor authentication mechanisms have been required to enforce stronger and more accurate identity matching and verifications. The main goal of this technology is to enhance security. By requiring two or more independent pieces of information for authentication, it reduces the risk posed by weaker password enabled security features, which are easy to crack or hack.
The key advantage of using a variety of security keys to biometric as well as security authentication systems is the use of unanticipated combinations of factors permitting or limiting the access to certain entries. This system deeply supports the federated identity management system. MFA Multi Factor Authentication can be seen anywhere. It is used in laboratories, corporations, offices, hospitals and even in some local ATMs, online banking and online shopping systems and in modern devices like laptops and cell phones. With the use of the provided hardware, people get to enjoy a reliable and highly secure credential vault that is heavily protected from all known means of breaches.
To secure the account, multi-factor authentication solutions every problem as it uses different factors like:
Hardware tokens that require the use of a hardware device for verification like a USB device or smart card.
Soft tokens require users to verify themselves by getting a push-based one time password in mobile apps. This option is very convenient.
Text Message sends the one time password on the user's mobile phone via text message that he needs to submit to get him verified.
Phone Call requires the user to give the correct response to the voice call to complete verification.
Email based sends a link to the registered mail id. The user needs to click on the link to get access.
Other commonly used authentication methods are biometric, security questions, etc.
It is crucial to make sure MFA authentication supports industry standards because the tool can easily interoperate with your existing infrastructure. So whenever an enterprise deploys multi-factor authentication solution for their business, they must make sure that it is easily interoperable with the existing infrastructure without causing any hurdle. Most importantly the cost of using this technology comes at a good price, so it is not possible for every company’s especially small firms to apply this type of authentications.
In MFA Authentication other than simple passwords biometric is the most used factor as it safest of them all. As the technology is further refining, the resulting solution could find wide-spread use as it truly is a simple solution from the users’ perspective, the user will probably simply have to hold the device. Smart cards were also used some time back but due to certain complications, it has now been stopped.