Nok Nok brings FIDO and Intel together for secure auth
19 September, 2017
category: Biometrics, Corporate, Digital ID
Nok Nok Labs is giving secure authentication a boost—and perhaps doing even more work to nudge computer passwords away from the mainstream—via a new partnership that brings together FIDO and Intel chips. The companies are embedding Nok Nok’s S3 Authentication Suite into all machines that run on Intel’s eighth generation core processors with Intel Software Guard Extensions technology.
According to Nok Nok, its S3 technology is “built from the ground up using FIDO authentication protocols. The S3 Suite integrates with a wide range of FIDO-certified authenticators supporting fingerprint biometrics, voice biometrics, face biometrics, secure elements, trusted platform modules, removable tokens and more.” The company adds that “by freeing users from the burden of remembering complex passwords, this integrated solution from Intel and Nok Nok Labs will allow consumers to access, and pay for, online services in a way that will reduce the risks of fraud for the service providers.”
Consumers who choose the latest 8th Gen Intel Core-based laptops will gain access to strong authentication, enabling secure payments in a safer, simpler, more hassle-free way
Intel reinforces that the newly embedded secure authentication technology will make online retail and similar transactions safer. “Consumers who choose the latest 8th Gen Intel Core-based laptops will gain access to strong authentication, enabling secure payments in a safer, simpler, more hassle-free way,” says Rick Echevarria, Intel’s vice president of the Software and Services Group, and general manager of the company’s Platform Security Division.
FIDO and Intel could move authentication beyond payments
That said, most FIDO and Intel transactions involve secure authentication that is unrelated to payments. But the online exchange of money stands as an example of early adoption of this technology, one that is “backed up by partnerships and customers,” says Rajiv Dholakia, Nok Nok’s vice president of product. “The benefits of this technology from Nok Nok Labs and Intel is that the foundation for security gets more secure for lots of different applications that will follow— in healthcare, in banking, in national security,” he says. “We think of this like putting chlorine in the water system. It doesn’t eliminate disease but make the spread of disease through water a exception rather than the rule and improves life for everyone.”
The launch of this new secure authentication technology for personal computers comes after Intel Security, in an online survey last year, found that the average adult had 27 discrete passwords for online and computer services. Intel also found that 37 percent of survey respondents reported forgetting at least one password weekly—a reason not only for the rise of online password management services, but for secure authentication technologies that rely on other factors.