The Fast IDentity Online (FIDO) Alliance grew at breakneck pace throughout 2013, the year of its official formation. The consortium’s board of directors specifically found itself manned by major names throughout the year, with MasterCard, Discover, and Microsoft all throwing their support behind FIDO’s standard bearing for authentication standards.
As we come up one the one year anniversary of the FIDO Alliance formation, it’s clear that even though the first products that adhere to the protocol have been introduced, the organization is still growing. Today, the announcement came out of Mountain View, California, that RSA, a global security company, has joined FIDO as a member of the board of directors.
“RSA has taken a leading role in authentication since its inception,” says RSA’s senior director of technology, Kayvan Alikhani. “We join the FIDO Alliance as a Board Member to continue our leadership and join other industry leaders in developing authentication that delivers choice and interoperability with privacy to meet the needs of diverse user populations. RSA’s resources and expertise in authentication will serve our customers and the FIDO community as we protect next generation access with higher levels of user convenience.”
FIDO Alliance president Michael Barrett has been among the most vocal anti-password personalities in the past 12 months, proclaiming the death of the password at conferences and during presentations. He speaks to this post-password end goal when welcoming RSA: “We draw on RSA’s expertise as we move closer to delivering FIDO specifications for universal strong authentication, to a marketplace crying for relief from the damages passwords and PIN dependency have wrought for both providers and users of online and mobile sites and services.”
Earlier this month during CES 2014 in Las Vegas the first FIDO Ready solutions were showcased. These technologies, like AGNITiO’s Voice iD solutions, are optimized to carry out a two-pronged attack against the current password dependent state of online protection for consumers and relying parties alike. By ensuring that the solutions being made available to prevent next generation fraud and cybercrime are both more secure and easier to use, FIDO is presenting relief to the maddeningly over-burdened end users in the form of low friction interface while also upgrading the protection of accounts, payments and other transactions.
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