Unveiling the software at the Infosecurity Europe show, which opens in London today, GrIDsure officials said the application - GrIDsure for Microsoft IAG - has been developed in partnership with Winfrasoft, the UK/South Africa-based Windows application vendor.

In use, the software is billed as adding two factor authentication to Microsoft's mobile worker application without the need for expensive hardware-based tokens.

As with previous GrIDsure products, the Microsoft IAG application is based on the company's colour pictorial grid, which requires users to authenticate themselves by remembering a four block sequential pattern on a minimum of a five by five grid, known as a Personal Identification Pattern (PIP).

Rather than users having to remember multiple passwords and PINs, the company says that users simply enter a randomly generated number on the keypad that corresponds to their PIP on the grid.

Ian Shandling, Microsoft's Identity & Access Business Manager, says that the GrIDsure technology shows that a token is not required for two factor authentication, whilst also significantly enhancing the security value of PKI-based tokens.

Jonathan Craymer, GrIDsure's chairman, meanwhile, says that the product is more secure and cost-effective that existing alternatives.

A change in the industry is taking place, he says, to allow organisations to roll out secure one-time passwords on a far wider scale than was possible previously with physical tokens - and with greater convenience for end users.

As remote working becomes increasingly popular, the need for safe, simple and secure systems is paramount, he added.

http://www.gridsure.com