Universities across the country have formed a “cohortium” to bounce ideas off each other and gather information about best practices regarding multi-factor authentication. Internet2 is funding the project from its $1.8 million grant from the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.

The FBI is making progress on the deployment of the Next-Generation Identification system. A move into the Clarskburg, W.Va. facility is about a year away and other increments are being added. Stephen Morris, assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division, fills Regarding ID’s Gina Jordan in on the program’s progress.

Patrick Harding, CTO at Ping Identity, talked to Regarding ID’s Gina Jordan about how good identity management systems can prevent data breaches and make companies more profitable.

Two-factor authentication is often pointed to as a way to improve online identification. And while two-authentication is an improvement over user names and passwords it can still be hacked. One of the latest attacks is a variation on a man-in-the-middle attack called Operation Emmental that’s being used in Europe.

Authentication on mobile devices isn’t easy. Extra hardware or lengthy passwords adds friction to the authentication process and nobody wants to deal with the hassle. Researchers at Rutgers University found that free form shapes drawn with fingers on the touchscreen are more secure than standard pass codes, and they’re surprisingly easy to remember.

The Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China has made the switch to contactless smart cards for citizen ID. The card has many applications but one of the main reasons for the move to contactless was automated passenger clearance at the border. Contactless enables quicker throughput and transaction speed and also increases the lifespan of the card since a chip isn’t exposed.

The Heartbleed bug caught everybody by surprise. Password breaches are almost common but the SSL vulnerability on major web sites has consumer scrambling to reset passwords. SecureKey’s Andre Boysen talks to Regarding ID’s Gina Jordan about the bug, it’s impact and how it may lead to multi-factor authentication.

In the latest Regarding ID podcast, Florida State Senators discuss why many want a biometric ban in schools. The bill has passed and Senate and the House and is expected to be signed by Gov. Rick Scott. The ban is intended to protect students from having their identities stolen even though senators couldn’t point to an instance where a biometric database has been breached and used to steal an individual’s identity.

The idea of issuing smart cards to patients in health care isn’t new but has yet to take off. Federal legislation has been proposed to issue smart cards to all Medicare recipients to reduce fraud. But states are also looking at the technology in order to protect patient privacy and cut down on abuse. New […]

Rounding out the last pilot winner for the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Regarding ID’s Gina Jordan spoke with Frank Morrow, program manager for identity and access management for the commonwealth, about its plans to use the $1.1 million award to knock down various agency identity silos. “Hopefully […]