FierceHealthcareFierceHealthITFierceHealthFinanceHospital Impact   FierceCIOFierceMobileITFierceSarbox

Microsoft brings on Verisign for PHR security

Tools
Tags
Verisign
Security Vendors
Personal Health Records (PHRs)
Openid
Google
Aetna

Last week, Microsoft struck a blow for consumer confidence in its PHR technology suite, Health Vault, by bringing on VeriSign as a security provider. HealthVault users are now able to log in to their PHR with VeriSign's OpenID. Built around VeriSign's Identity Protection (VIP) Network, consumers who sign up for its OpenID will be able to use it for various services, including Bay, PayPal and AOL. When users log into HealthVault records using the OpenID secured with VIP, they'll need to enter not only their OpenID user name and password, but also a one-time-password generated by their VIP credential.

While your editor isn't qualified to judge just how secure this approach is relative to other methods of accessing PHRs, I'd argue that bringing on VeriSign is a smart marketing move for Microsoft. After all, given its broad presence in e-commerce, VeriSign is one of the few--if only--brands consumers might name if you asked them which security vendors they recognize. And such recognition should work in Microsoft's favor as the battle of the PHR technologies continues to progress. After all, PHRs are one of the few medical technologies where consumer acceptance is more important than that of IT managers. 

To learn more about the deal:
- read this VeriSign press release

Related Articles:
Microsoft kicks off PHR initiative
A PHR turning point
Aetna enters PHR market with medical info option
Google unveils details of PHR

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

More information about formatting options

What is 44 + 14?
To combat spam, please solve the math question above.