Patent ID: 8434130

Claim:
An authentication system, comprising: a server apparatus; a terminal device connected to the server apparatus over a network; and an authentication device connectable to the terminal device and used for authentication at the time of establishing a session between the terminal device and the server apparatus, the server apparatus including: an authentication request data creating unit configured to create authentication request data to authenticate the terminal device, and a sending unit configured to send the authentication request data created by the authentication request data creating unit; the terminal device including: a receiving unit configured to receive the authentication request data sent from the server apparatus, an authentication reply data creation requesting unit configured to request the authentication device to create authentication reply data corresponding to the authentication request data received by the receiving unit, and a sending unit configured to send the authentication reply data created by the authentication device to the server apparatus; and the server apparatus further including: an authentication processing unit configured to authenticate the terminal device based on the authentication reply data sent from the terminal device, wherein as a result of the authentication conducted by the authentication processing unit, a data is sent to the terminal device when the terminal device is authenticated, the result of the authentication conducted by the authentication processing unit providing confirmation as to whether the authentication device is connected to the terminal device or whether the authentication device has been removed from the terminal device in that the terminal device is authenticated when the authentication device is connected to the terminal device, and after a predetermined time period elapses from a time that the sending unit of the server apparatus sends the authentication request data to the terminal device without the sending unit of the terminal device sending the authentication reply data to the server apparatus, the server apparatus considers a timeout to have occurred and terminates the connection between the server apparatus and the terminal device.