Startup Tackles Identity Assurance

StrikeForce Technologies& identity assurance products protect against fraud at three critical points: account creation, account access and online data entry, said Jordan Byk, vice president of channel management at the Edison, N.J.-based company.

Jane Bradshaw, principal at Secure Storage Networks, Webster, Mass., said she is “extremely intrigued” with the products. “With identity theft rampant, to be able to go in and pitch this type of product is a no-brainer,” she said.

Jeff Greenspan, president of Database and LAN Solutions, Burke, Va., said he also sees opportunities with the ProtectID and VerifyID products. ProtectID is a two-factor authentication product that supports 10 methods of strong authentication. Greenspan said its ability to take authentication out-of-band by sending an e-mail to a user&s BlackBerry device or calling a user&s cell phone is especially interesting to customers.

VerifyID is a managed service that mines public databases to ask questions from a credit applicant&s credit history and driving record, for example, to initially verify identity. The service, priced on a per-transaction basis, asks “really specific questions that only you can answer,” Bradshaw said. For example, “it asked me what kind of car I bought in 1997.”

Because StrikeForce&s products are less expensive than other authentication products, they are a good fit for smaller banks and financial institutions as well as car dealerships, Bradshaw said. “When you start to get into what [they do] and the affordability of the products, these small banks and car dealerships realize that they can have the kind of security that much larger organizations have.”

Byk said StrikeForce already has authorized 18 VAR partners and has another 20 being qualified. He expects that as the company ramps up from startup mode, 90 percent of sales will go through channel partners.