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You might attend one of the large cyber security trade shows or a national conference on defeating hackers and keeping your company's data safe, and emerge thinking "hackers don't have a chance of getting in". And then you see yet another headline on yet another big data breach, and reality kicks in. We're far from winning you think. But wait, there's a new technology in town, which has the ability to start levelling the playing field.
If a set of technologies clearly don’t work well, should you blindly keep on using them? That’s the question we asked ourselves several years ago when looking at today’s inadequate authentication systems and products. We could see that all of them suffered from major flaws. Perhaps the biggest is that they all require users to give up something valuable - like a mobile number or fingerprint (to name just two) - which can ALL be stolen.That’s worth repeating. Virtually all current authentication systems depend on user secrets or objects which can be stolen, rendering them weak and vulnerable. So we set out a number of years ago (around 2005) to create something where the user’s all-important “secret” could not be stolen, is never exposed, only resides in the user’s head, and does not depend on users having to carry extra bits of plastic (including phones) to prove who they are. Shayype technology we believe is the first real advance in cyber security for decades. Now users can enjoy the convenience of passwords, with the strength of 2FA - without the clutter and cost of having to use extra devices. Not even phones! Shayype displays a different code (a one-time passcode or OTP) on the user’s screen, meaning it’s far more secure than say vulnerable “two-step” authentication systems where users are sent codes by text. These can so easily be diverted to hackers’ own phones simply by taking over a user’s mobile account. We also hope to save the world from the burden of having to use longer and “stronger” passwords, which just get harder to remember – so end up being written down or stored en masse. All that’s now inthe past. The future now looks more secure for all of us, as at last cyber security can (pardon the pun) Shayype up.
Jackson is a CTO with 18 years’ experience in software and app development. He has successfully completed projects that saved companies £800k annually and contributed to the sale of a business for £3.5 million supported by technology he helped create.
John has long been a pioneer in FinTech and the Digital Trust model for internet transactions, having helped to found Barclays’ original Information security management team, and in 2000 helping to set up IdenTrust - a global bank joint venture. He is now heavily involved in the development of distributed ledger technology in fintech.
Jonathan is the founder of Shayype having pioneered pattern-based authentication in Europe as long ago as 2005. His background is in communications, media (both as print and broadcast journalist), public relations and conference organisation. In 2008 a company he set up to begin exploring the potential of device-less OTP authentication was awarded “Cool Vendor”status by Gartner, and in 2009 the same company won UKTI’s Franco-British Award for Innovation. Now as part of the Shayype team he hopes to save the world from the burden of passwords, replacing them with what is arguably the first new knowledge-based “factor” for use in human authentication in decades.
HOW CAN WE HELP?
Yes. Compared to existing systems such as MS Active Directory where encrypted passwords are stored, the Shayype system offers far higher security as users' secret patterns are not actually stored in their original form.
Certainly. Shayype is a new ingredient in the security ‘mix’, able in theory to replace all fixed user-ID codes including PINs (personal identification numbers) as well as much of the hardware (sleeve-readers, key-fobs, cards). It could therefore replace or enable updating of, most of the systems currently in use. For instance, credit and debit cards could work with Shayype OTPs instead of fixed PINs, enabling them to be used securely online; vulnerable fixed passwords used in web-banking (albeit only exposed in parts – but still vulnerable) could be replaced. Etc.
No – it’s very different – for several reasons. Shayype allows users to extract or ‘generate’ one-time codes (passcodes) which can either be input or used for other purposes (securely reading a one-time login code over the phone, or giving a credit/debit card one-time ‘PIN’ to a carer or shop-assistant being two examples. Also the Android swipe can be shoulder-surfed, isn’t very variable, and may even leave a greasy mark (with Shayype the user never touches the screen).
Instead of vulnerable fixed strings of characters, users are armed with secret patterns or shapes, which when applied to small grids containing numbers (typically 5X7) populated with random (frequently repeated) single digits, neatly and elegantly provide users with new ‘one-time’ codes for each transaction, while resisting threats such as shoulder-surfing.
Due to its flexibility, Shayype is an ideal ‘extra’ factor or ‘fallback’ system, which could operate if other systems have failed. For example, if a biometric system – such as a fingerprint reader – couldn’t operate due to several factors (e.g. user’s fingerprint has worn away) Shayype could still operate.
Yes. Shayype Keycloak provides single sign-out, which means users only have to log out once to be logged-out of all applications that use Shayype Keycloak.
No. That would betray your secret pattern. You just read off the numbers and input them on a separate keypad (on the device or using a stand-alone one on-screen). One of the strengths of Shayype is that it’s practically impossible for someone watching you to work what your pattern is – as there are at least seven of each digit. Which ‘5’ did you use, which ‘4’ etc.
There are over 33bn on a 5x7 – which is our ‘everyday’ or default size matrix. Increase the size of the matrix, and security goes up exponentially.
Yes. Shayype is highly scalable, so in theory huge numbers of users can be granted a one-time passcode facility. This means whole user/customer-bases could be provided with greater online security, or a city/town could do the same for its citizens.
Yes. Like having multiple passwords, you can have more than one pattern. However (although this is up to individual users) you may decide having just one, or even two, patterns is enough.