You need authentication



I am constantly amazed at the lassez faire attitude that the majority of businesses, large and small, have about their online security. 

Those that require their users / members to log on will provide a user name and password log in to verify their identity – and that’s it. 

I suppose that if the large players like Amazon and iTunes can get away with it then the smaller guys think that’s all they need to.
The reality is that if the big boys get a hit – they have the firepower to deal with it.  But SME’s just need one bad hack and they are out of business.   

2011 is going down as the year of the ‘Hack’ ( http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/22481/year-of-the-hack-/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) with many high profile victims like SONY, RSA and Epsilon losing millions of their users personal information.    Despite this there seems to be the attitude that ‘ it cant happen to me’ .    I have just read about the latest phishing scam targeting Amazon users ( http://bit.ly/tXBENH ) – warning you that your account is about to expire and that you need to re-register.  In the process handing over your precious information and opening up your Amazon account to the hacker.    There is also one going around for PayPal and Apple at the moment.   Yet they persist with user name and password.   Incredible. 

 I suspect there is a bit of the “ it wont happen to me “  but also I believe that most SME owners think that they just can’t afford a proper solution because the image created by the industry is that you have to be a big corporate to have ‘proper’ security.   It clearly is not true.    There are more and more solutions now targeting the ‘low’ end of the market.    While some are  ‘samey’ to the big guys there are one or two which are really quite unique.   What should you look for in such a solution ?

It needs to be easy to get.   You shouldn’t have to call someone – have someone visit you – do some kind of an IT project.  It should be a SAAS service available on line and easy to integrate.

It needs to be easy to use.   Your users should not have to get some ‘thing’  - be it a token ( physical or otherwise ),  a dongle,  a  card reader, a USB key or even a cookie or some kind of software download.   Ideally your users should rely on something they already have like their smart-phone or their laptops as part of the solution.  

It should not cost a lot.  Ideally some kind of ‘Pay as you Go’ solution which means that you don’t incur any unnecessary expenditure upfront in getting the product in place. 

If you are going for something that is more complicated than that then you are making your life difficult.  Check out http://www.liveensure.com

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