The world revolves around confirming you are who you say you are. You show your identification when you write a personal check, at the airport when checking in for a flight and when requesting a withdrawal from your savings account. The standards for verifying someone's identity are commonplace in the physical world.
Now, enter the cyber world. Soon, passwords alone may not provide adequate safety and security. As technology advances, hackers and thieves have also advanced, requiring security to evolve to stay ahead of criminals.
Digital certificates and computer registration are a couple ways computer technology is working harder to verify a person's identity. Digital certificates provide a means of proving your identity in electronic transactions; much like a driver license or a passport does in face-to-face interactions. Computer registration is a means to officially register your computer with an encrypted digital certificate to identify your computer whenever visiting the specific website that issued the certificate. Digital certificates can be used for a variety of electronic transactions such as electronic commerce and online banking.
As technology forges ahead, these methods will help keep us one step ahead of the hackers and identity thieves.
