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means authenticating to the Security Platform. Only after successful
authentication your Basic User Key can be used.
The Acer Security Platform Solution provides two authentication levels to
protect your Basic User Key:
Password Authentication
The Basic User Key is protected with the Basic User Password. This password has
to be typed in manually.
Enhanced Authentication
The Basic User Key is protected with the Basic User Passphrase. This passphrase is
securely stored by an authentication device, e.g. a SmartCard, a secure USB
token, a fingerprint reader or another biometric authentication device. The
passphrase can be accessed only by this authentication device, e.g. by inserting
a SmartCard and typing in its PIN or by putting the finger on the fingerprint
reader.
Passwords and Passphrases
With Password Authentication a "normal" password serves as Basic User
Password. Although it is technically possible to use long and complex
passwords, most passwords are quite short, because they need to be
memorized.
With Enhanced Authentication there is no need to memorize passwords,
because they are managed by the authentication device. From the user's point
of view, the password is replaced by a PIN or by a biometric authentication.
Thus Enhanced Authentication is more user-friendly. On the other hand the
security level is considerably raised with the authentication device's built-in
security features. For example, a SmartCard has a retry counter blocking the
card after several wrong PIN entries. This way brute-force attacks are made
impossible and relatively simple PINs can be used.
To emphasize that Enhanced Authentication combines long and complex
passwords with user-friendliness, another term is used instead of Password: the
Passphrase. A passphrase is basically nothing different than a long complex
password.
The Security Platform Solution differentiates between these two terms:
Password is used in Password Authentication mode and means Basic User
Password.
Passphrase is used in Enhanced Authentication mode. It also means the Basic
User Password. The Basic User Password is called Basic User Passphrase in this
context.