The year 2014 was an ambitious and successful one for the FIDO Alliance. Membership grew by more than a third, highlighted with additions to a board that now comprises global leaders in consumer devices and platforms, enterprise security, and authenticating high-value consumer transactions online. Met with widespread acclaim, the FIDO Alliance published final 1.0 specifications, the world’s first standards for interoperable strong authentication. Thirty-three FIDO Ready™ implementations have passed interoperability testing, which offer many easy, secure ways to login and transact with sites, services, or cloud applications using FIDO authentication. Options range from biometrics to hardware tokens, embedded chips, and microSD adaptations, and FIDO U2F products from Google, Yubico, Plug-up, EyeLock and other FIDO Alliance members. Google Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser, now provides native support for FIDO authentication. Hundreds of millions of Samsung device users are prepared to use FIDO authentication in mass-scale payments applications that are deployed globally, including on China’s largest payments platform, Alipay.
„The crescendo of activity in 2014 around credential theft & payment fraud has resulted in an ecosystem that is clamoring for a stronger solution that’s easy to use,” said FIDO Alliance President Dustin Ingalls. “The diversity and broad representation present in the FIDO Alliance today make it the frontrunner to deliver a broad industry solution to these issues.“
“I see 2015 as the year when FIDO Alliance transitions from simply developing specifications and advocating awareness to an organization that is taking a proactive role in helping to shepherd the inevitable shift in the industry from single-factor password security to simpler, stronger authentication,” according to Brett McDowell, Executive Director of the FIDO Alliance. “All the signs point to a dramatic increase in the adoption of biometrics and other innovations that will be enabled for secure, privacy-respecting interoperation through compliance to FIDO standards.“
In 2015, the FIDO Alliance will continue to expand the FIDO standards for strong authentication with new versions that will enhance FIDO U2F with additional mobile and wireless capabilities, including extensions for BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and NFC (Near Field Communications).
The FIDO Alliance participates in events worldwide to inform global audiences that better authentication — more secure, private and easier-to-use than passwords — has arrived and is ready to use now.