Patent ID: 7886346

Claim:
A method for authenticating a user of a communications network, comprising: centrally receiving, as part of the initial login protocol, primary credentials from the user; performing, as part of the initial login protocol, a primary authentication sequence to initially authenticate the user based on the received primary credentials; retrieving a first secondary authentication sequence from a plurality of retrievable secondary authentication sequences; centrally receiving first secondary credentials from the user as part of an initial login protocol for a session; performing the retrieved first secondary authentication sequence to authenticate the user based on the received first secondary credentials as part of the initial login protocol; retrieving a second secondary authentication sequence from the plurality of retrievable secondary authentication sequences; transmitting a request for second secondary credentials if the primary authentication sequence is performed successfully but the first secondary authentication sequence is performed unsuccessfully; centrally receiving the second secondary credentials in response to the transmitted request; and performing the retrieved second secondary authentication sequence to secondarily authenticate the user based on the second secondary credentials received in response to the request.