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FIDO Alliance (Fast Identity Online Alliance) is an industry consortium that was introduced in 2013 to amplify online security, bringing in stronger authentication to safeguard the interests of the people all round the globe. Today, they have brought in a ‘FIDO Certified’ testing program that measures the level of compliance. Hence, products or services having the ‘FIDO Certified’ logo will prove that the company has a high-quality interoperable FIDO implementation that will work with other services and products with the same certification. In short, the consortium has stepped up to finally bring an end to the password.
Sources pointed out that 18 different companies have already received their FIDO certification, thus making way for interoperating services to take effect in the near future. However, these aren’t comprehensive enough and wouldn’t do away with the password right away. Instead, once it is deployed, people will have a robust alternative to keying in a string of gibberish characters. The FIDO specification was first published in December, establishing the ground rules of the post-password authentication. A FIDO system can accept a user login from any FIDO-certified device, whether it uses a fingerprint scanner, a voiceprint detector or any form of technology that is still outside our reach.
During the launch of the certification program, Brett McDowell, Executive Director of the FIDO Alliance, said that the program has been brought in to satiate the need of a revolutionary online security standard that is uniform across all products and services and is interoperable as well. The Alliance has laid down simple logo using terms that allow potential websites and other parties to demonstrate their support for FIDO.
People close to the project pointed out that Google’s login service was the biggest system to receive FIDO’s certification as a two-factor server. However, the Alliance sees the two-factor authentication as a mere stepping stone. In fact, many FIDO certified services have already moved beyond the two-step process into a more ambitious territory. Having said that, companies like Alibaba, Bank of America and Visa, all are FIDO certified but are yet to roll out the FIDO compatible login system.
The FIDO Alliance is here to change the state of online security and bring in a more robust, but simpler authentication program which will eventually phase out the way we login into systems and services, making them interoperable and reducing their reliance on passwords.