The FIDO Alliance Appoints Samsung Electronics to the Board of Directors

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA and SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA–(Marketwired – Apr 22, 2014) – The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance (http://www.fidoalliance.org/), an industry consortium revolutionizing online authentication with standards for strong authentication, today announced that Samsung Electronics, Ltd, has joined the FIDO Alliance and been appointed to the Board of Directors. Consistent with its global leadership in technology, Samsung joined PayPal recently in announcing the world’s first deployment of FIDO Ready™  technology.

“Samsung introduced the world’s first smartphone with biometric payment authorization system at Mobile World Congress this year. Samsung partnered with PayPal for including a fingerprint-based authentication system utilizing FIDO Ready technologies in its latest flagship device Galaxy S5. We are thrilled to join the FIDO Alliance and look forward to working with industry leaders in paving the way for convenient, reliable and secure mobile payment experience based on open standards,” says Michael Pak, Vice President of Security R&D Group, IT & Mobile Communications Division at Samsung.

“Samsung continues to impress with innovations that showcase new technology’s potential. Samsung and FIDO Alliance founder PayPal, along with founder members Synaptics and Nok Nok Labs, have collaborated to develop the first FIDO Ready technology deployment. The new Galaxy S5 represents the first time that mobile payments are secure, private and easy-to-use. Samsung’s embracing of FIDO authentication signals endless possibilities for strong, easy to use authentication everywhere,” said FIDO Alliance president Michael Barrett. “We enthusiastically welcome Samsung to the FIDO Alliance Board of Directors, and anticipate a new breadth of influence and expansion for FIDO authentication.”

“As one of the world’s leading device makers, Samsung’s adoption of FIDO Ready technology and fingerprint authentication, as evident in the new Samsung Galaxy S5, is paving the way for consumers worldwide to securely participate in mobile commerce with greatly improved convenience,” said FIDO Alliance vice president and PayPal senior cybersecurity advisor Brett McDowell. “We are thrilled to have Samsung join us on the FIDO Alliance Board of Directors and we look forward to continued innovation and market adoption of FIDO standards with their leadership and support.”

FIDO Alliance members commit to share technology and collaborate to deliver open specifications for universal strong authentication that enables FIDO-compliant authentication methods to be interoperable, more secure and private, and easier-to-use.

FIDO specifications will support a full range of authentication technologies, including biometrics such as fingerprint and iris scanners, voice and facial recognition, as well as further enabling existing solutions and communications standards, such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), USB Security Tokens, embedded Secure Elements (eSE), Smart Cards, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Near Field Communication (NFC). The open specifications are being designed to be extensible and to accommodate future innovation, as well as protect existing investments. FIDO specifications allow the interaction of technologies within an interoperable infrastructure, enabling authentication choice to meet the distinct needs of users and organizations.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in technology, opening new possibilities for people everywhere. Through relentless innovation and discovery, we are transforming the worlds of televisions, smartphones, personal computers, printers, cameras, home appliances, LTE systems, medical devices, semiconductors and LED solutions. We employ 270,000 people across 79 countries with annual sales of US$187.8 billion. To discover more, please visit www.samsung.com.

About The FIDO Alliance
The FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, www.fidoalliance.org, was formed in July 2012 to address the lack of interoperability among strong authentication technologies, and remedy the problems users face with creating and remembering multiple usernames and passwords. The Alliance plans to change the nature of authentication by developing standards-based specifications for simpler, stronger authentication that define an open, scalable, interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords. FIDO authentication is stronger, private, and easier to use when authenticating to online services.

The FIDO Alliance Board of Directors includes leading global organizations: ARM Holdings plc (LSE: ARM) (NASDAQ: ARMH); Bank of America Corporation (NYSE: BAC); BlackBerry®; CrucialTec (KRX: 114120); Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS); Google; IdentityX; Lenovo; MasterCard (NYSE: MA); Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT); Nok Nok Labs, Inc.; NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI); Oberthur Technologies OT; PayPal (NASDAQ: EBAY); RSA®; Samsung Electronics, Ltd (KOSCOM: SECL); Synaptics (NASDAQ: SYNA); Yubico.