An Alternate Way Of Authenticating Patients

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with a security app I downloaded to my Android phone. The app, True Key by Intel Security, allows you to log in by presenting your face for a scan or using your fingerprint. Once inside the app, you can access your preferred apps with a single click, as it stores your user name and passwords securely. Next, I simplified things further by downloading the app to my laptop and tablet, which synchs up whatever access info I enter across all devices.

From what I can see, Intel is positioning this as a direct-to-consumer play. The True Key documentation describes the app as a tool non-techies can use to access sites easily, store passwords securely and visit their favorite sites across all of their devices without re-entering authentication data. But I’m intrigued by the app’s potential for enterprise healthcare security access control.

Right now, there are serious flaws in the way application access is managed. As things stand, authentication information is usually stored in the same network infrastructure as the applications themselves, at least on a high-level basis. So the process goes like this, more or less: Untrusted device uses untrusted app to access a secure system. The secure system requests credentials from the device user, verifies them against an ID/PW database and if they are correct, logs them in.

Of course, there are alternatives to this approach, ranging from biometric-only access and instantly-generated, always-unique passwords, but few organizations have the resources to maintain super-advanced access protocols. So in reality, most enterprises have to firewall up their security and authentication databases and pray that those resources don’t get hacked. Theoretically, institutions might be able to create another hacking speed bump by storing authentication information in the cloud, but that obviously raises a host of additional security questions.

So here’s an idea. What if health IT organizations demanded that users install biometrically-locked apps like True Key on their devices? Then, enterprise HIT software could authenticate users at the device level – surely a possibility given that devices have unique IDs – and let users maintain password security at their end. That way, if an enterprise system was hacked, the attacker could gain access to device information, but wouldn’t have immediate access to a massive ID and PW database that gave them access to all system resources.

What I’m getting at, here, is that I believe healthcare organizations should maintain relationships with patients (as represented by their unique devices) rather than their ID and password. While no form of identity verification is perfect, to me it seems a lot more like that it’s really me logging in if I had to use my facial features or fingerprint as an entry point. After all, virtually any ID/PW pair chosen by a user can be guessed or hacked, but if you authenticate to my face/fingerprint and a registered device, the odds are high that you’re getting me.

So now it’s your turn, readers. What flaws do you see in this approach? Have you run into other apps that might serve this purpose better than True Key? Should HIT vendors create these apps? Have at it.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

3 Comments

  • There is a simpler technique which provides better characteristics: two-factor authentication. In two factor authentication, a password is combined with a mobile number, to which a text is sent when authentication is triggered from an unrecognized device. Soon, we will be able to avoid the password as well. Done with standardized protocols thus avoiding vendor lock-in, this scheme improves scalability, security & privacy.

  • Jan,

    Thanks for your comments. I see that your URL for Apicura (which I noted from comment info) leads to a “company coming soon” page. Are you in stealth mode or would you like to discuss what you’re doing? If you’d like to reach out feel free to try me at anne@ziegerhealthcare.com.

    -Anne

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