Introduction to One Time Password (OTP)
If you are someone who often uses the e-banking services which all of us use at a higher rate these days, you must be well familiar with the OTP or One Time Password concept. This One Time Password or OTP is basically a string of auto generated numeric characters which is used for user authentication for a single transaction. Hence the name One time Password (OTP).
One Time Passwords or OTPs are used across platforms for e-banking and to operate systems with sensitive information as a way of strong authentication of the user. These OTPs are considered to be much safer than the static passwords like the user created passwords as they remain the same across various platforms and can be misused by anyone. As for OTPs, they are generated one time and have a time limit in which they need to be entered which provides a sense of added security and makes it much unlikely for them to be misused.
Many users get OTP or One Time Password through security tokens which are also called OTP tokens which are PIN protected. This adds an extra level of security. The user has to enter the one time password along with other details for logging into a website or server.
Benefits of One Time Password or OTP
One Time Password or OTP is considered to be more secure than the static passwords which are user created and used across various platforms multiple times. The benefits of these One Time Passwords or OTPs are as follows:
- There is no risk of misuse of the OTPs as they cannot be reused through multiple accounts.
- They are not user generated so you don’t need to worry about the composition of the password being weak or strong.
- They also provide certain protection against hackers as they have a certain time limit in which they need to be entered after which they become invalid.
