Iovation Acquires LaunchKey, Plans to Continue Supporting WordPress Plugin

LaunchKey’s password-free authentication platform has been acquired by iovation, a company that provides fraud prevention services and device-based authentication. The companies plan to merge their technologies to provide more authentication options and are launching a product called LaunchKey MFA, a new combined dynamic authentication suite.

LaunchKey MFA offers security professionals a toolkit that includes a variety of authentication options they can offer to their customers, such as slide, fingerprint, bluetooth, PIN, and circle code. Customers will be able to use these authentication options in any combination.

“By leveraging iovation’s world-class device intelligence network, LaunchKey will become a smarter, more adaptable, and more dynamic authentication and authorization platform,” LaunchKey CEO and co-founder Geoff Sanders said.

“One of the challenges of employing multi-factor authentication for both organizations and their end users is to provide an adequate level of authentication as needed without over-burdening the end user. Our combined solution will enable companies to adapt the level of authentication needed from their consumers in real time, while giving end users the multiple authentication options they’ve come to expect with LaunchKey.”

Sanders confirmed that iovation will continue supporting the open source LaunchKey WordPress plugin that enables password-free login on WordPress sites. Last year the company added biometric fingerprint scanning authentication to the plugin, which also offers geofencing (restricting login to one or more geographic locations), facial recognition, Bluetooth device range restrictions, PIN codes, pattern codes, and other options.

When asked how the acquisition will impact the open source plugin, Sanders said that LaunchKey joining iovation will give the team more resources to continue developing and supporting the plugin.

“The LaunchKey WordPress plugin will remain in place, and we plan to continue to support it for the foreseeable future,” Sanders said. “Our commitment and passion for the developer community, open source software, and a more secure internet are as firm as ever.”

Sanders could not provide specifics on the product roadmap but said the team has new features in the works related to adaptive and risk-based authentication.

“And now as a part of iovation, we’ll be able to further accelerate our R&D initiatives with LaunchKey to continue innovating around authentication and security,” he said.

The LaunchKey WordPress plugin has received regular updates and new features since it was published on WordPress.org in 2013. The support forum has all topics marked as resolved. WordPress users who want an alternative to traditional 2FA can download the free LaunchKey mobile app and install the plugin with confidence that iovation’s development team will continue to support its open source investments.