Google has quietly acquired security startup SlickLogin, an
Israeli company working on innovative authentication solutions that leverage
mobile and audio technology.
Mike Lennon, SecurityWeek
Founded by three graduates of the Israeli Defense
Force’s elite cyber security unit, SlickLogin’s founders say they started the
company “because security measures had become overly complicated and annoying.”
As Techcrunch explained when the company launched, “SlickLogin
can use a bunch of protocols to start verifying your phone’s position: WiFi,
Bluetooth, NFC, visual markers like QR codes, and of course, GPS. Their
self-dubbed “secret sauce”, though, is their use of uniquely generated sounds
intentionally made inaudible to the human ear. Your computer plays the sound
through its speakers, while an app on your smartphone uses the device’s
built-in microphone to pick up the audio.”
“Today we`re announcing that the SlickLogin team is
joining Google, a company that shares our core beliefs that logging in should
be easy instead of frustrating, and authentication should be effective without
getting in the way,” the SlickLogin team wrote on their company web site.
Google has not said if or how SlickLogin’s
technology would be integrated into its security measures, but the founders of
startup hint that they will be working as part of Google’s two-factor
authentication product team.
“Google was the first company to offer 2-step
verification to everyone, for free - and they're working on some great ideas
that will make the Internet safer for everyone,” they wrote. “We couldn't be
more excited to join their efforts.”
The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.