Village Gamer

SecureKey Technologies Inc. has announced the commercial availability of its cloud-based briidge.net™ identity and authentication platform – a groundbreaking solution that enables people to use devices and credentials they already have to perform strong two-factor authentication, bringing trust to mobile and online transactions. The briidge.net suite of extended enterprise federated authentication services is easy for people to use and reduces the number of user IDs and passwords they manage, without sacrificing security and privacy.

“Our briidge.net platform solves the trust problem of federated identification by offering a painless way to perform strong, two-factor authentication when connecting to online or mobile services without having to carry any additional tokens or cards,” said Andre Boysen, executive vice president of sales and marketing at SecureKey. “It also solves significant cost and resource issues faced by online services due to high incidents of forgotten passwords. briidge.net services allow users to authenticate themselves using their own third-party credentials with a high degree of assurance and enhanced privacy, and offer the level of reliability and security organizations demand.”

Organizations can choose between two briidge.net service offerings, depending on how frequently their users connect, and whether or not they want to support the use of third-party credentials:

• briidge.net™ Enterprise service – designed for financial institutions, government, healthcare providers, mobile network operators and other extended enterprises seeking to improve the security of their existing credentials with multi-factor authentication for accessing their online and mobile applications. It supports enterprise Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives and allows users to turn consumer devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and others into strong “what you have” factors for authentication. It also enables devices to act as secure readers of in-wallet credentials like contactless payment cards, identity cards or dynamic QR codes. briidge.net Enterprise customers also can enable their credentials to be accepted by others through the briidge.net Exchange service to help those organizations better cope with infrequently-used credentials.

• briidge.net™ Exchange service – based on a three-party model of users, credential providers, and credential subscribers, the briidge.net Exchange service allows authentication and identity information to be exchanged between credential providers and subscribers, while maintaining user privacy and control. It enables organizations to accept credentials from a trusted third-party issuer such as a bank, government, mobile operator, or social media site. The Exchange service allows users to bring their own credentials (BYOC) from third-party providers and is ideal for infrequently-used services, such as government, utilities and telecom self-service, where password reset and account re-registrations lead to user frustration and high support costs. The briidge.net Exchange service reduces credential management expenses, increases service adoption, and easily integrates into online or mobile applications with minimal administrative overhead. The briidge.net Exchange service is an extension of SecureKey Concierge™, a service that allows Canadians to use their bank authentication credentials to securely access online services from the Government of Canada.

“Establishing trust in the identity ecosystem is an essential ingredient for success, and companies like SecureKey are providing innovative solutions to address this need,” said Don Thibeau, OIX chairman and president. “We applaud SecureKey for their efforts in delivering strong authentication and security services to enterprise companies and their mobile employees.”

The critical device-based security offered by the briidge.net platform is made possible by briidge.net DNA security software, which transforms personal devices into strong, two-factor authentication tokens. briidge.net DNA software already is embedded in third-generation Intel® Ultrabook™ computers enabled with Intel Identity Protection Technology (IPT). It is available for Windows, Mac OS®, iOS, Android™ and Blackberry® platforms, and can be embedded by developers into their apps using a software developer kit (SDK). It can also be delivered over-the-air by a trusted service manager into SIMs or embedded secure elements for hardware-based security. briidge.net DNA can securely read Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex, Interac, PIV, ICAO and other contactless card formats.

The briidge.net platform provides a high level of trust for a wide variety of identity and authentication applications. Unlike one-time password (OTP) solutions that require users to type codes in to browsers and are subject to intercept attacks, briidge.net uses dynamic cryptograms to improve the user experience and security of application systems. This provides strong protection from operating system malware or man-in-the-middle, server-in-the-middle and other impersonation attacks.