The Voice Of Internet Security

By William Boston/Berlin

In 2000, Michael Kramer, a former fashion-industry executive, was the victim of a hacker who stole his identity and went on a shopping spree with his credit card info. It was one of his first encounters with the wilds of the Internet. Kramer, 43, whose background is in marketing, saw opportunity in the crime. "The initial idea was to set up voice authentication to avoid that kind of thing again," he says.

Now he is the CEO of Voice.Trust AG, which aims to eliminate that kind of identity theft. He teamed with engineer Raja Kuppuswamy to create a system that uses a combination of a password or PIN and voice authentication to securely establish ID.

The idea is hot enough to entice IBM into taking a 5% stake in the company and incorporating Voice. Trust into its online-commerce platform. Other big customers include Microsoft and HSBC. Voice.Trust is being used within corporate networks for employee verification.

The company has also targeted online commerce, teaming with Internet telephone service Skype to test Internet-based voice authentication that verifies transactions on the fly for the likes of Amazon and eBay. Your plastic may still be vulnerable, says Kramer, but "no one can steal your voice."