Mutual authentication
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Mutual authentication or two-way authentication refers to two parties authenticating each other suitably. In technology terms, it refers to a client or user authenticating themselves to a server and that server authenticating itself to the user in such a way that both parties are assured of the others' identity.
Typically, this is done for a client process and a server process without user interaction.
Mutual SSL provides the same things as SSL, with the addition of authentication and non-repudiation of the client authentication, using digital signatures. However, due to issues with complexity, cost, logistics, and effectiveness, most web applications are designed so they do not require client-side certificates. This creates an opening for a man-in-the-middle attack, in particular for online banking.
As the Financial Services Technology Consortium put it in its January 2005 report, "Better institution-to-customer authentication would prevent attackers from successfully impersonating financial institutions to steal customers' account credentials; and better customer-to-institution authentication would prevent attackers from successfully impersonating customers to financial institutions in order to perpetrate fraud."
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Some examples of two-factor authentication include:
- Deepnet Security's Deepnet Unified Authentication Platform product.
- Tricerion Strong Mutual Authentication (SMA) solution is a Zero-Footprint, Strong Mutual Authentication Solution.
- WiKID's mutual authentication system
- Mutual Authentication for Web Services: A Live Example
- How to prevent phishing with mutual authentication - How to stop phishing with mutual authentication.
