CHAPTER 4: SECOND-FACTOR TECHNOLOGIES

A burgeoning world of options

If you were to ask a number of reasonably well informed security professionals, “What is two-factor authentication?” you’d likely get a consistent answer: “Hardware tokens that generate random numbers.” This view isn’t unfair or inaccurate in the macro view of the world since it’s been 30 years since Kenneth Weiss filed his patent for what would become the very well known RSA SecurID token. This single line of devices has propelled the RSA brand into the pockets of many of the most important professionals over the past few decades, and was, in many ways, one of the few options of computer-focused two-factor authentication security in a typical enterprise.

Today, two-factor authentication ...

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