FIDO Alliance Gains Global Leader in Banking Authentication with VASCO Addition
VASCO Data Security Adds Support to Industry Alliance to Eliminate Passwords
OAKBROOK TERRACE, IL, and MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, June 10, 2014 - VASCO Data Security International, Inc. (NASDAQ: VDSI), a global leader in authentication, digital signatures, and identity management, announced it has joined the FIDO (Fast Identity Online) Alliance, an industry consortium delivering standards for simpler, stronger authentication during online transactions.
As the leading provider of authentication solutions to financial institutions and a sponsor member of the FIDO Alliance, VASCO looks forward to supporting FIDO’s progress in the rapidly evolving area of authentication. In addition to strong relationships with the world’s leading banks, VASCO brings extensive global experience in e-government and government-issued identity solutions that integrate government and private sector needs for identity verification and authentication.
“The growth of sophisticated global hacking organizations has changed the access control landscape” said Benoit Grange, CTO for VASCO Data Security. “2013 was a record year for stolen user login credentials and it is no longer a question of if, but when, all organizations will embrace simple and secure user authentication.”
"We are delighted that VASCO has joined the FIDO Alliance and our mission to achieve universal strong authentication for financial, enterprise, consumer, and cloud services. VASCO is among the most respected global leaders in strong authentication, with insights and experience that will be invaluable to the development and deployment of FIDO specifications,” said Michael Barrett, president of the FIDO Alliance. “With VASCO, the FIDO Alliance continues the journey toward a world beyond passwords with more secure, private, easier-to-use authentication wherever it is needed."
FIDO Alliance members commit to share technology and collaborate to deliver open specifications for universal strong authentication that enables FIDO-compliant authentication methods to be interoperable, more secure and private, and easier-to-use.
“The FIDO Alliance gets stronger and more useful as more of the identity suppliers support its protocols and standards,” Said David Strom, computer technology author and security analyst. “Just a little over a year ago, it was just the dream of a few engineers. Now it has more than a 100 members and is growing rapidly. I am glad to see VASCO become a part of this consortium.”
FIDO specifications will support a full range of authentication technologies, including biometrics such as fingerprint, eye and iris scanners, voice and facial recognition, as well as further enabling existing solutions and communications standards, such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), USB Security Tokens, embedded Secure Elements (eSE), Smart Cards, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Near Field Communication (NFC). The open specifications are being designed to be extensible and to accommodate future innovation, as well as protect existing investments. FIDO specifications allow the interaction of technologies within an interoperable infrastructure, enabling authentication choice to meet the distinct needs of users and organizations.
VASCO is a leading supplier of strong authentication, digital signature, and identity management solutions specializing in securing web and mobile applications and online transactions. VASCO serves a customer base of approximately 10,000 organizations in more than 100 countries, and approximately 1,700 global financial institutions including many of the world’s leading banks. VASCO's primary markets are the financial industry, enterprise security, e-commerce and e-government.
The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, www.fidoalliance.org, was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The Alliance plans to change the nature of authentication by developing standards-based specifications for simpler, stronger authentication that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords. FIDO authentication is stronger, private, and easier to use when authenticating to online services.
The FIDO Alliance Board of Directors includes leading global organizations: ARM Holdings plc (LSE: ARM and NASDAQ: ARMH); Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC); BlackBerry®; CrucialTec (KRX: 114120); Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS); Google; IdentityX; Lenovo; MasterCard (NYSE: MA); Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT"); Nok Nok Labs, Inc.; NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ:NXPI); Oberthur Technologies OT; PayPal (NASDAQ:EBAY); RSA®; Samsung Electronics, Ltd (KOSCOM: SECL); Synaptics (NASDAQ: SYNA); Visa Inc. (NYSE: V); Yubico.