US Patent 9398009 Device driven user authentication

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that authenticates a user. The system includes an authentication server that obtains an authentication request containing a user identifier for the user and matches the user identifier to a device identifier for an electronic device of the user. Next, the authentication server provides a notification of the authentication request to the electronic device. Upon receiving approval of the authentication request from the electronic device, the authentication server authenticates the user without requiring an additional authentication factor from the user.