AOL, RSA, VeriSign push authentication services

On the back end, VeriSign will distribute a plugin program for Microsoft's Management Console allowing allow customers to link user accounts with a particular strong authentication device for validation. Separate plugins will redirect authentication requests from Active Directory or other LDAP (Lightweight Direction Access Protocol) directories to the Unified Authentication service for verification, he said.

While VeriSign's service is focused on enterprises and AOL's new service is focused on consumers, the two announcements are a sign of increasing competition within the market for multifactor authentication and PKI (public key infrastructure) technology, which RSA has long dominated, according to Laura Koetzle of Forrester Research Inc.

Long dismissed as too expensive and difficult to implement, PKI and multifactor authentication are again getting the attention of enterprises and consumers frustrated by phishing attacks and hacking, she said.

By lowering the cost of deploying technology like SecurID tokens and PKI infrastructure, VeriSign is hoping to tap into demand among businesses for better login security for employees, business partners and customers, Koetzle said. The company also hopes to draw in small businesses through its hosted service offering, she said.

At the same time, RSA is driving down the cost of its tokens and trying to popularize the use of multifactor authentication by extending the technology to consumers through the partnership with AOL, she said.

While AOL probably won't sell a token to all of its customers, it could still find a healthy market for the new premium service, according to Avivah Litan of Gartner Inc.

A recent Gartner survey found that security is a major concern for about 20 percent of online consumers and 60 percent or 70 percent of consumers who had been online fraud victims. Sixty percent of those surveyed said they would be more likely to spend money through or keep money with an online vendor that implements security technology and gives them a choice of using it, Litan said.

Presented with an increasingly hostile Internet and online commerce environment, and slow response on the security problem from merchants, banks and financial services companies, consumers may well reverse the trend of the last decade away from mediated Internet services like AOL that can help them keep their account and sensitive information secure, Litan said.