Broadly speaking, Microsoft is pitching the deal as facilitating the company provide “a broader range of authentication services to Microsofts’ cloud customers.” But the PhoneFactor technology also can be used to help secure on-premises products, such as SharePoint running on an in-house server, as well.
PhoneFactor already engaged with many Microsoft products and services, including Outlook Web Access and Internet Information Services, and interoperates with Active Directory, according to the Overland Park, Kansas-based company.
“Following this acquisition, Microsoft plans to further integrate PhoneFactor’s technology into its Active Directory, Windows Azure Active Directory and Office 365 products,” Bharat Shah, corporate vice president with Microsoft’s Server and Tools division, said Thursday in a blog post.
More so, PhoneFactor offers organizations different ways for their employees to access key software and services without relying just on passwords or security tokens. The company’s specialty lies in its phone authentication, but it also provides authentication through text messages as well.
According to PhoneFactor CEO, Timothy Sutton, describing the concept in a blog, saying that “when we originally unleashed PhoneFactor, we had a vision to deliver strong authentication as a seamless part of almost every process where an individual needs to access confidential or proprietary data.” He added that “phones provided the ideal platform.”
Microsoft’s latest acquisition is PhoneFactor… (Image Credit: PhoneFactor)
Additionally, the company delivers three methods of phone-based authentication: calling users and waiting for them to answer and press the “#” key; texting users a passcode and waiting for them to send it back via SMS; or pushing an authentication request to an app installed on the users’ phone and waiting for them to hit the “Authenticate” button.
PhoneFactor’s current line up includes authentication plug-ins and products for IBM Tivoli; Citrix; PingFederate; and VMWare View, among others.
As a matter of fact, “The acquisition of PhoneFactor will help Microsoft bring effective and easy-to-use multi-factor authentication to our cloud services and on-premises applications,” Shah, said in a statement. “In addition, PhoneFactor’s solutions will help Microsoft customers, partners, and developers enhance the security of almost any authentication scenario.”
Meanwhile, PhoneFactor will continue to sell its products as a standalone service with existing pricing and contracts. However, later on, the company’s products will be transitioned to Microsoft’s Volume Licensing contracts.
Besides, existing PhoneFactor customers will continue to be supported and the company will remain open for business, PhoneFactor’s Sutton said in a blog post.
Among other thing, PhoneFactor’s technology will also continue to work with non-Microsoft products and the company’s existing partners will be able to continue to resell its products, according to a FAQ page on the company’s website.
Moreover, in recent years multi-factor authentication has been implemented into many online services. Google, Facebook, Yahoo Mail, LastPass and Dropbox are just some of the websites that offer it as an option for increased account security.
Neither company disclosed financial details of the deal.