Eran Feigenbaum, director of security at Google (News - Alert) Apps, recently posted a blog entry about how organizations looking to secure their information beyond a password “have faced costs and complexities that prevented many of them from using stronger security technologies.” This has ramifications for password reset software, among other sectors.

To combat this problem, Google has introduced a more secure sign-in capability for Google Apps accounts to increase the security of the cloud: “Two-step verification,” Feigenbaum says.

And it’s not just for the big boys: Organizations large and small can use this technology for free, “In the coming months, we’ll also be offering this same security to our hundreds of millions of individual Google users,” Feigenbaum added.

Two-step verification requires two means of identification to sign in -- “something you know: a password, and something you have: a mobile phone,” Feigenbaum said, and that’s it: “After entering your password, a verification code is sent to your mobile phone via SMS, voice calls, or generated on an application you can install on your Android (News - Alert), BlackBerry or iPhone device.”

Yes you can indicate that you’re working from a secure computer and don’t want to mess with all that too, if you want. And Google will be open sourcing our mobile authentication app so companies can customize it.

But still, if somebody has your password, even if they don’t have your phone, you’ll want to reset it. “If you do in fact need to change your password, password reset software helps make the process much simpler for the user,” noted TMCnet recently.

There are many different types of password reset software on the market today. One type of software available is self-service password reset software provided by Thycotic, which is a technology that lets users who have either forgotten their password or have been locked out of their account repair their own problem, without calling the help desk.