Google acquires password-killing startup SlickLogin

Tapping in your password (if you can remember it) can be a chore. Google looks to change all that with a sound-based password. Source: ThinkStock

TRYING to remember all your online passwords can tie you up in a panicky, confused state.

But Google might be changing all that with a sound-based password only your phone can hear.
Google has acquired SlickLogin, an Israeli security startup that delivers a smart alternative to having to access sites that require both a passwords and authentication code that’s sent to your mobile.

MORE: What are the most popular and most-hackable passwords?
This time-consuming process will hopefully be banished as the new technology from SlickLogin lets you hold your mobile up to your computer to ‘listen’ to the website’s ultra-sonic sound. This inaudible sound is encrypted with data and the unique confirmation required is heard by the phone and sent back to the SlickLogin servers, and you’re in.

An annoucement on the SlickLogin website. Source: Supplied

Because you are the owner of the mobile phone it knows that it is you trying to access the site, not a hacker from an unknown remote location. The audio code is different each time you try to login, which means you have to physically be there to get access.
SlickLogin believes “logging in should be easy instead of frustrating and authentication should be effective without getting in the way”.
Details of how much Google has paid for this service has not yet been disclosed.