Last week, PayPal co-sponsored an event with Google about the future of online authentication entitled “Replacing Passwords: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". The event was also an opportunity to introduce the FIDO Alliance and their new authentication standards. The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance is a non-profit organization formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication devices as well as the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The FIDO Alliance plans to change the nature of authentication by developing specifications that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that supplant reliance on passwords to securely authenticate users of online services.

Participants on the panel included industry and government experts, including PayPal’s John Muller. The following experts joined Muller on the panel:

• Jeremy Grant, National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, NIST
• Michael Kaiser, National Cyber Security Alliance
• Brett McDowell, FIDO Alliance
• Liz Votaw, Bank of America
• Amy Zirkle, Electronic Transactions Association

Learn more about the FIDO Alliance and the future of authentication technology.