Cryptocard Buys GrIDsure Tokenless Patents

Cryptocard today announced the acquisition of patents and intellectual property from GrIDsure, it hopes will give it more to offer the small and medium business (SMB) market.

The two-factor authentication (2FA) company purchased the IP of tokenless, pattern-based authentication vendor, GrIDsure, for an undisclosed amount only weeks after rumours surfaced that GrIDsure was in financial difficulties and would face liquidation, due to investors pulling out.

Tokenless technology growing

According to Cryptocard, the company will use GrIDsure’s tokenless authentication technology, which is growing in popularity, on its own BlackShield SaaS platform. This, claims the company, will help reduce costs generated by hardware tokens, as well as the support and infrastructure they require, creating opportunities for the company to further penetrate the SMB space, which may be unable to afford more costly solutions.

“This acquisition will not only allow us to offer customers more choice by adding to our portfolio of physical, software, SMS, phone and tokenless tokens, but the ease of use associated with pattern authentication will also enable us to create a mass market solution, which will include SMBs,” said the company in a statement.

Neil Hollister, CEO of Cryptocard, added “We made the decision to acquire GrIDsure’s pattern authentication IP to build out our already robust token and tokenless offering and to give our customers the widest possible choice. Tokenless technology is incredibly cost-effective and easy to use and is a growing market. By delivering it on Cryptocard’s BlackShield Cloud platform, the cost of service delivery is minimal and builds on our vision to make strong authentication universally available to organisations globally, regardless of size.”