US Patent 7853984 Methods and systems for authentication

Disclosed are systems and methods of authenticating a user on a network, including, based on identity information received from the user, accessing at least one data source to retrieve data associated with the user, comparing the retrieved data against a listing of possible questions associated with the retrieved data to determine associations between the retrieved data and the listing of possible questions, based on a ranking of the listing of possible questions, formulating at least one question set using questions within the listing of possible questions for which retrieved data is available, where each of the at least one question set includes at least two different questions, causing at least some of the questions from the at least one question set to be presented to the user, and, based on responses to the questions from the user, determining whether the user is authenticated.