New Patent That Eliminates Passwords and Protects Personal Data
Today is National Data Privacy Day, TextPower announces that the company has been granted an important patent for a “text messaging authentication system” that is the basis for the company’s TextKey platform. Websites using the TextKey platform will offer their users higher security, easier logins and less hassle and save themselves from the most common cause of customer support calls – lost login IDs and passwords. TextKey will significantly reduce enterprise or e-commerce website operating costs and inoculate them against the most common forms of hacking: social engineering, password theft, key loggers and phishing schemes.
Unlike commonly available authentication systems TextKey users send a simple text message (SMS) from their cell phone to authenticate their identity. Through this one simple text message, multiple factors are authenticated using the patented technology forming a highly secure barrier to hacking. The TextKey system also employs a secure connection, completely outside the browser environment, that eliminates man-in-the-middle attacks making it significantly more secure than any other SMS-based two factor authentication technologies. Without physical possession of the authorized cell phone and knowing the user's personal PIN, identity thieves cannot login to an account using someone else's credentials.
“What an appropriate day to receive a patent for our authentication technology and announce our one-step secure login product, SnapID,” said Scott Goldman, CEO of TextPower. “SnapID, a new product based on our patented TextKey platform, eliminates the need for both user IDs and passwords. No more remembering, typing, managing or resetting passwords. No more lists, sticky notes or password managers to handle the dozens of login credentials we all use everyday. To login, users 'just text it'."
SnapID doesn’t just solve the password problem – it eliminates it and will fundamentally change the way people login to websites, use ATMs, buy pay-per-view movies, checkout at cash registers and any other process that requires identification and authentication. Cell phones have already replaced address books, cameras, calculators, boarding passes, navigation systems, music players and even heart rate monitors. By using them to send a simple text message they can now replace userIDs, passwords, authentication tokens, USB keys and the ubiquitous – and reviled – login box on every website.
A SnapID-enabled website will have a “Login with SnapID” button along with the traditional username and password fields. Visitors who have registered for a free SnapID account will simply click that button; a one-time password then appears on their computer screen. The visitor sends a plain text message with the one-time password from their registered cell phone (which doesn’t need to be a smart phone) and they are then logged in securely.