Identity theft remains one of the biggest threats in the cyber world for many who do business online. Our Berkshire County reporter Brandon Walker visited a software company in Lee that's working with the Obama administration to make e-commerce safer.

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

LEE, Mass. -- Many of us turn to the internet to handle just about everything, from paying bills to shopping and keeping up with friends. The problem is the more dependent we've become, the larger the risk of someone stealing our identity.

"We need some same place like a vault to keep our online identities," said Steven Sprague, CEO of Wave Systems, a Lee-based software manufacturer that's come up with that vault, using security chips to establish one access code for all of your personal information.

"In these chips we're able to store a series of codes that log you on to different sites, for example your email or corporate network, or access to a website on the internet," Sprague said.

The company announced this week its taking what it does here in the Berkshires to the White House.

It's called The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, a system where consumers could use a single credential to prove who they are instead of remembering multiple passwords.

"In the future, I can log into my bank by first registering my computer with my bank and now whenever I'm banking with my home computer, the bank knows it's me and not someone who's stolen my password," Sprague said.

It's all a push to put the brakes on identity theft, which has affected some 12 million people in the last two years, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics.

"There's no reason why, our online experience can be more convenient and much safer than our existing physical experience," Sprague said.

Making cyber crimes less pervasive as more and more of us click away to handle personal business.

Wave Systems has partnered with several computer manufacturers to learn more about the company, visit its website at www.wave.com.