NCHRI Selects PhoneFactor for Phone-based Authentication

By Susan J. Campbell

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Positive Networks (News - Alert), a provider of security products and services, has announced that PhoneFactor has been selected by Nationwide Children’s Hospital Research Institute (NCHRI). PhoneFactor is Positive Networks phone-based authentication technology and will be implemented by the nation’s largest children’s hospital and pediatric research centers.

 

NCHRI was seeking a secure two-factor authentication solution that could provide the protection they needed without requiring them to provide and maintain security tokens. The organization evaluated several two-factor authentication solutions on the criteria of ease of use, flexibility, security, scalability and cost.



PhoneFactor’s unique phone-based approach was selected as the two-factor authentication method for granting outside access to NCHRI’s network as it stood out among those solutions considered as providing good value in addition to the critical necessary elements.

The PhoneFactor solution adds a second layer of security to NCHRI’s existing login processes. By working with the user’s phone, there are no devices to distribute and nothing to install. Users can simply login with their user name and password and instantly they get a call. They answer the call and press # to complete their log in.

“PhoneFactor has provided an easy, secure and flexible two-factor authentication to front end our current SSL VPN solution,” stated Scott Kowal, Senior Network Engineer at NCHRI, in a Wednesday statement. “This is a significant improvement compared to our static username and password solution.”

“PhoneFactor eliminates the need for expensive and cumbersome tokens,” said Tim Sutton, CEO of Positive Networks, in the Wednesday statement. “With so much focus on HIPAA regulations, it was extremely critical that they protect their sensitive data with a highly secure but yet affordable and user-friendly solution.”

NCHRI was founded in 1892 and began as a local charity to serve a dozen very ill children. This once time community-funded mission has grown into a health care systems that today spans the Midwest as one of its preferred providers of pediatric healthcare.

PhoneFactor can use any phone - mobile or landline - as a second form of authentication. The solution can be setup in minutes and eliminates the need for tokens, smart cards or certificates. The basic service is free with advanced modules available for enterprise deployments.

For those organizations that work within the medical and healthcare industries, authentication is of critical importance as organizations are under strict HIPPA regulations to protect information. PhoneFactor was able to not only deliver the solution necessary to stay within these legal guidelines, it also provided a solution that required little set-up and no installation, making the transition seamless for all users.