Getting Smart About Security: Balancing Accessibility With Proper Authentication

We live in a world that is becoming increasingly more connected. For both businesses and individuals, the unprecedented rate at which technological advancements are accelerating is a good thing. Higher levels of connectivity translate to better, easier communications and more convenience. Our world moves fast, so the devices and technology we use for managing the flow of people, processes and information must be up-to-speed.

Unfortunately, a more connected world also means security is a greater concern. And for most organizations, finding a balance between increased accessibility and stronger authentication has often been challenging. Now, it doesn’t have to be.

LISNR Smart Tones eliminate many of the issues other existing technologies today present. As the world’s first ultrasonic audio solution, Smart Tones work in a way that no other product does, providing businesses with opportunities for improvement that weren’t possible before.

Achieving simpler and stronger security
Smart Tones use inaudible sound waves to transmit data between digital devices in real time using existing hardware and device infrastructure. Each Tone is unique and encrypted, creating a secure and seamless authentication process within a matter of seconds (or less).

As Smashing Magazine pointed out, one of the biggest problems with password authentication today is that it doesn’t scale well and just adds one more thing users need to remember. Smart Tones eliminate these burdens.

Affordable and easy to scale, Smart Tones don’t require additional hardware or equipment, allowing any smart device to achieve secure check-in and authentication. Whether it is a wearable, tablet or smartphone, Smart Tones only use the microphone and speakers on a device to connect, and create and decode data to validate a user. In addition, its offline capabilities bypass the need for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection or cellular data usage.

A secure offline authentication process means businesses can validate users with more speed, convenience and security than ever before – regardless of the environment or application. Smart Tones can be packaged in many different ways for various industries and purposes. For example:

• Building security: Organizations that want certain employees to have access to an otherwise secured environment can use Smart Tones to create as many “keys” as they need. Authenticated users can access secured areas using unique Tone generations. Furthermore, businesses can program these keys to work only during certain times and renew or expire as necessary.
• Ticketing: Smart Tones take mobile ticketing to the next level. Some pains associated with mobile ticketing, such as QR codes and emails, include dead zones and overloaded networks limiting usability, as well as the need for specific device compatibility and hardware. They also only tell companies so much about the customer. Smart Tones have offline capabilities that make the authentication process seamless, so the check-in and door entry processing goes a lot faster. Plus, Smart Tones reduce the risk of fraudulent tickets.

Because data doesn’t pass over a WiFi or cellular network, and instead uses the microphone and speaker to transmit data over inaudible sound waves, Smart Tones add another layer of security to the authentication process. Whereas the hardware and software of other solutions are vulnerable to attack, LISNR’s product combines single-use tones with metadata and tokenization to ensure a completely secure connection, preventing unauthorized access and leaving no sensitive data to be hacked.

Automating authentication
The more efficient authentication processes are, the smoother operations will go. By eliminating most of the obstacles that hamper today’s security protocols and technologies – such as additional hardware requirements, server call identification and heavy central processing unit/battery usage – Smart Tones are able to automate the authentication process, establishing the perfect balance between strong security ease of accessibility.

To get a better idea of how Smart Tones are unlocking the future with the Internet of Sound, check out this video: