As we have said in the past, the humble password is not necessarily the best way of securing your online accounts. This is because due to people generally choosing bad passwords for themselves, which can be easily guessed. This has led to the rise of two-factor authentication systems and also hardware keys like Google’s Titan.
However it seems that at least over in the US, the country’s major carriers – AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon – have banded together to launch a new system called Project Verify that aims to bring single sign-on services for smartphones, which could potentially put an end to passwords as far as smartphones are concerned.
How does this work? Basically when a user registers their phone, that information along with the phone number, phone account type, SIM card details, IP addresses, and more, will be used to authenticate the user. For example on the surface two iPhones look identical side-by-side, but it will be different from each other thanks to its IMEI, phone number, IP address, account tenure, and etc.
That being said, Project Verify isn’t necessarily the end-all solution for protection. This is because due to the fact that the service automatically logs users in, it means that should your phone get stolen, it would essentially expose all your accounts. This means that users will still need to place some kind of protection on their phones in the form of a PIN or biometric security.