Shove over, 2FA

Security upstart LiveEnsure is trying to shake up the authentication market with technologies that verify users by device type, location and user behaviour, as an alternative to established authentication systems.

The firm is pushing its smartphone-based services as an alternative to security tokens, biometrics, one-time-passwords or SMS messages. All these older techniques are both invasive and ineffective because they are hackable, according to LiveEnsure. “Passwords, dongles, cookies and even biometrics can all be had, somehow,” said Christian Hessler, founder and chief exec of LiveEnsure.

The start-up is targeting a wide arrange of authentication markets, from e-commerce to payments to governments. LiveEnsure’s technology works with Android, iOS and Windows Mobile smartphones.

LiveEnsure is partnering with wearables outfit Pebble, mobile payments service Drop Payments and Intrinsic ID for a mobile payments system. The initiative, dubbed Freehand, is designed to improve the usability experience of wearables and mobile apps in e-commerce. LiveEnsure and Drop have teamed up to work on technologies for mobile transactions on smart devices and wearables.

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