Google has joined the Fast Identity Online (FIDO) Board of Directors, the industry consortium developing “standards-based open specifics” to overcome our dependency on passwords through “universal strong authentication.”
The company is specifically focusing on bolstering FIDO’s efforts in developing two-factor authentication through One-Time Passwords (OTP), Near Field Communication (NFC) and Biometric Verification.
One-Time Passwords can already be seen in Blizzard’s Battle.net Mobile Authenticator and Google’s own Authenticator mobile app and involves randomly generated passwords that can only be used once and retrieved by a special device.
The FIDO Alliance was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The Alliance plans to change the nature of authentication by developing standards-based specifications that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that supplant reliance on passwords to easily and securely authenticate users of online services.