Mobile one-time password app

OneLogin announced the debut of its mobile one-time password (OTP) app, which lets users perform multi-factor authentication with the click of a button.

Available on all major smartphone platforms, including iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry OS 6 and 7, the app is free with every OneLogin plan.

The one-time password app provides secure access to corporate VPNs, Box, Google Apps, Salesforce, and other cloud apps with a second authentication factor beyond user name and password.

When a user is prompted for a one-time password on OneLogin’s login page, they are asked to launch the mobile OTP app and click “send” versus having to type their code into the login screen. OneLogin then validates the code and logs in the user. As a fallback solution, users can enter the one-time password manually if their mobile phone is disconnected from the network.

To begin using the app, users can simply request from their OneLogin sign-in page that a text or email with a download link be sent to their mobile device. Upon installation, the mobile app generates a unique credential ID tied uniquely to the OneLogin user. This ID is then registered, at which point the user chooses a valid one-time password for signing into OneLogin.

OneLogin’s OTP solution is based on RFC 6238 – A Time-Based One-Time Password Algorithm, which was designed by VeriSign, Symantec and others. The RFC describes how two endpoints with synchronized clocks can exchange a secure one-time password based on the HMAC algorithm. One-time passwords are valid for 30 seconds, but the implementation of the algorithm is able to tolerate some time drift on the mobile device in order to increase reliability of the solution.