The Digital Big Bang

3AUTHENTICATION

“The truth is, we actually enjoyed a higher degree of authentication in the past using a physical signature or a stamp than we do today in the digital world using ones and zeros.”

Mike McConnell, former Director of National Intelligence

“We will soon no longer be able to trust the network itself without modern authentication.”

Shannon Lietz, Intuit

Authentication is the security process that validates the identity of an individual, system, or entity. From the very beginning of the Internet—in both philosophy and digital infrastructure—authentication was a neglected necessity. This neglect created a pervasive weakness that has metastasized into the primary methodology for hackers to access protected data.

As the Internet began and developed within an isolated community—shaped by principles of trust governed by tightly controlled access—it is understandable but agonizing to modern security practitioners that trustworthy authentication, for instance, lagged behind. Why focus on authenticating users when everyone on the burgeoning networks had security clearances and tightly specific, highly visible approved uses?

• Lack of trustworthy authentication has been the bane of security since the Internet's inception.
• Authentication needs are many: People to hardware, software to operating system, operating system to hardware, hardware to hardware, software to software. ...