Patent ID: 9667611
Date: 2017-05-30
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L

Claim:
1. A method of authenticating a requesting party, the method comprising: receiving a request to authenticate the requesting party, the request being received during a current situation defined by current values of a set of situational parameters indicating a state of a situational environment internal and external to the requesting party, the set of situational parameters being evaluated as part of an authentication operation; producing an authentication result based on the current values of the set of situational parameters; authenticating the requesting party based on the authentication result; receiving updated values of the set of situational parameters; producing a difference between the updated values of the situational parameters and the current values of the situational parameters, the difference being larger than a threshold value, re-authenticating the requesting party; and selecting an authentication operation that verifies first authentication factors of a set of authentication factors of the requesting party, verification of the first authentication factors being more likely to successfully authenticate the requesting party than second authentication factors of the set of authentication factors, given that the values of the set of the situational parameters are equal to the current values wherein selecting the authentication operation includes performing a read operation on a situational authentication table, the situational authentication table including rows and columns, each row corresponding to values of the set of situational parameters, each column corresponding to an authentication factor of the user, each entry at a row and column of the situational authentication table including a likelihood that verification of the authentication factor to which that column corresponds given the values of the set of situational parameters to which that row corresponds implies authentication of the requesting party.