With mobile-based two factor authentication, Townsend Security offers customers an additional control to protect core security solutions from un-authorized access due to compromised credentials.

Today Townsend Security announces that its flagship Alliance Two Factor Authentication solution for the IBM i (AS/400, iSeries) has been enhanced to support SMS text delivery using the Twilio global cloud communications platform. Twilio’s self-service SMS text delivery platform makes it easy and affordable for customers to provision accounts under a SaaS model. IBM i customers only pay for what they use and can easily expand their use of the service over time.

“IBM i customers want security solutions that are affordable, easy to install, and easy to configure and administer. Our Alliance Two Factor Authentication solution requires no hardware or back-end internal infrastructure to deploy,” said Patrick Townsend, CEO of Townsend Security.

Two factor authentication is now a critical security control that every IBM i customer should be using to control access by highly privileged users. Customers can install Alliance Two Factor Authentication, provision the Twilio service online, and start using two factor authentication very quickly. The software will even identify your privileged users and help immediately enforce two factor authentication. The solution can be downloaded from www.townsendsecurity.com and includes a free 30-day evaluation.

“Many compliance regulations such as the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and others require or strongly recommend the use of two factor authentication (also called multi-factor authentication) to secure all non-console administrative access and all remote access regardless of privileges to core servers. A single IBM i server is often host to a large number of sensitive applications. It is common that IBM i customers run human resources, CRM, ERP and other applications on a small number of IBM i servers that then become a target for cyber criminals. The use of two factor authentication to protect highly privileged users is a security best practice. And it is now very easy to implement,” continued Townsend.

In addition to protecting the logins of highly privileged users, the Alliance Two Factor Authentication product also exposes a command interface to the Twilio SMS text service. This means that IBM i customers can now integrate SMS text authentication directly into their own applications. Need an out-of-band authentication for that multi-million dollar financial transaction? You can now do that directly from your business applications with the Send Text Message with Twilio (SNDTXTTWI) command and application program interfaces (APIs).

In addition to user authentication the new SMS text application support can be used for notification of significant application events. Your business applications can send a message when inventory runs low at a distribution center, when a business process has been delayed, or for any other critical business process. You can even embed links into the text messages to help users quickly solve problems and accomplish critical tasks.

Alliance Two Factor Authentication is licensed on a per logical partition (LPAR) basis, with perpetual and subscription licensing options available. Existing Alliance Two Factor Authentication customers on a current maintenance contract can upgrade to the new version at no charge.