As services increasingly become digitised, there is a growing need to authenticate and validate the identity of people and devices. Processes must develop to maintain security and trust – both from user and service provider perspectives.
This has seen progress from traditional physical and printed credentials to digital and virtual, although the need for a root of trust remains. Quite simply, historical PIN, password and physical identity documents are unable to serve new market requirements and expectations.
As with many developing sectors, there are many different technologies, models and standards available. It is important to be able to understand these, their suitability to serve the target application, viability, and acceptance. Multi-factor authentication, derived credentials, biometrics and security tokens are prominent examples which are increasingly being integrated into services able to be deployed across multiple channels. Secure hardware, digital certificates and new platforms are among the solutions able to ensure devices can be identified and managed securely on networks to allow OEMs and service providers to securely use and manage products.