Open Solutions Inc., a provider of integrated enabling technologies for community financial institutions, has released a "Security Matrix" two-factor authentication feature, which will be offered to client financial institutions as an optional security add-on to the Internet Banking application.
According to the company, with Security Matrix, online banking consumers receive an additional, true two-factor level of protection when accessing their sensitive account data. Each consumer is issued a wallet-sized card, which contains unique random numbers arranged in a row-and-column matrix format.
The online user first enters his or her user name and password in the established manner. The consumer will then be prompted to input a second authentication factor-the digits contained in three randomly chosen cells in the matrix. The consumer enters the data contained in the cell element that corresponds to the prompted coordinates. Once the system verifies that the digits entered are correct, the user is admitted to the online banking portal. This results in more than 59,000 possible combinations to complete a valid authentication, the company said.
According to Open Solutions, this type of authentication requires limited customer/member training and, if the card is lost, replacement is easy and inexpensive.
"Conventional OTP hardware tokens rely on electronics that can fail through physical abuse or defects, but placing the matrix on a wallet-sized card makes it easy to carry," the company said.
Separately, Open Solutions Inc. announced that Newburgh, Ind.-based Heritage FCU and Bettendorf, Iowa-based R.I.A. FCU plan 2006 migrations to Open Solutions' enterprise-wide core data processing platform, The Complete Credit Union Solution (TCCUS).
The credit unions will also implement several other Open Solutions' complementary applications. Open Solutions is a provider of integrated enabling technologies for financial institutions across the United States and Canada.
For info: www.opensolutions.com.
