PayPal Creates Higher Security Levels with FIDO

PayPay is a widely accepted form of payment for many retailers, as well as users, especially freelancers operating strictly over the Web.

However, because of the surge in mobility usage and increased Internet activity finance sites like PayPal are at risk of being hacked, and consumers could potentially have their money stolen. (Side note: I once had my PayPal (News - Alert) account hacked for 50 dollars worth of Hearst magazine prescriptions. All users are at risk of having their accounts hacked, even for frivolous reasons like a magazine. )

In order to make PayPal an even safer place, it has aligned with PC-maker Lenovo (News - Alert) and has introduced a new authentication system designed to eliminate passwords and add tighter security to accounts.

Their alliance, known as Fast Identity Online (FIDO), gives mobile devices a more central role in the authentication process and uses cryptographic methods to pass information to back-end servers so log-in data is not sent over the wire or stored on the back-end, where it can be stolen.

The FIDO protocol will be launched later this year, which is hoped to be in ranks such as the Internet Engineering Task Force or the World Wide Web Consortium and be built into the Web mobile applications.

Along with purchasing, consumers can also use sites like eBay (News - Alert) to sell just about any product that they can package and mail to individual buyers. What makes it possible for consumers to pay and receive funds for products is PayPal, as there are no other sites like it, which why it is so important that precautious measures are taken to maintain its credibility and security

Although some researches and analysts seem to be worried about FIDO, Stephen Wilson, founder of the Lockstep Group, pointed out the significance of mobile devices and the need for a universal hardware base security to be developed.

 "Chipped devices - cards, SIMs, MIMs, smartphones and the like - are the technologies that solve the human-machine interface problem, and are natural containers for as many non-replayable credentials as we like. Some of the FIDO founders play in these smart technologies, so I hope they can work to lift the bar across the board,” said Wilson.

PayPal has created a legacy that has been adopted around the world for over a decade, and with such a reputation, it is hoped that FIDO can attain the same notoriety.